As you may have read...

...in the comments for last post, the cat did come down sometime during the night. It's been hard to post for two reasons the past couple of weeks: Matthew, and our computer was down. It turned out to only be the power supply that was the problem so we were lucky. Matthew and Gavin have only been giving me around 45 minutes or less to myself during the day (where they are asleep simultaneously). I do have several posts to update, but will be doing it later. I have been going to bed early because I have to be functioning at 7:00 am these days, which is no fun for me because I would sleep in given the choice. Even with Gavin at home by himself I felt like I didn't really function until noon, except on days where I actually left the house early, (even though I had physically gotten out of bed by 7:30 or so, hehehe.)

Up a Creek without a Paddle...

..or rather, up a pole without a ladder! Jessica told us that the cat had gotten scared by a dog and ran up one of the telephone poles in the backyard. I went outside to check on him and he was too scared to do anything. A couple of hours later, I checked on him again and he seemed like he wanted to come down and meowed at me plaintively. Well, Philip and and Jon got out the ladder and Philip was going to try to go up the pole, but it became apparent that that wasn't going to work because there weren't any foot holds in the pole, just holes where they should have been. Jon got the idea to use a two by four to prop it against the pole so that he could come down at a slant instead of straight down. The cat did not cooperate. Even with prodding from the pool skimmer, he either wasn't getting the point, or he was too scared. I even went to get some treats to try to tempt him, but to no avail. So, the two by four is still propped up between the brick fence and the telephone pole, just in case the cat gets brave during the night. We used up all of our efforts within half an hour: there was nothing more we could do.

Now we are just hoping that he doesn't break a leg or worse on the way down whenever he decides to try and venture down. Do you think that the fire department would really come rescue a cat like they do in the cartoons and movies? Philip thinks that they would probably charge for the service.

Hopefully the next post won't be his obituary.

Do you see his glowing eyes in this picture?

Our first day with Matthew

It was a fairly tough day because we all have to get used to being together and I had to feed Matthew a bottle when he prefers his mother in person (of course!) To put it briefly, he was supposed to drink 10 oz of milk and only got 2 1/2 - 3 1/2 oz total and the two children only slept a total of 40 minutes and the same time, just long enough for me to take a shower and relax for a minute to realize Gavin was awake--but it was too late to keep him from waking Matthew. We also took two walks, one long, to give Matthew more sleep time and keep them both happy. That duallie stroller was a life saver yesterday!!!! (Should have taken a picture of them in it, will have to do that!)

Gavin thought that the lids to Matthew's bottles were the best toys.

Kix anyone?

During our first morning with Matthew, I was feeding him and Gavin was playing with a box of Kix and...you can see the result.

Mr. Plate Man

I'm trying to get Gavin used to using plates and bowls. He has done this several times and I finally caught it on camera!

Writing!

Philip has been helping me learn the Japanese syllabary and I was writing them out over and over again to help me memorize them and Gavin wanted to do it, too! It's so cute how he wants to be like us! (Although, I must admit it's annoying as well because he won't let you do what you want to!!!)

Eating Spaghetti...

...without it being ground up! I have been working hard to move away from grinding; after all, I don't want Gavin to be four years old and I'm still grinding it for him!!! I help him use the fork/spoon, feed it to him with the fork, or he sometimes even ventures to use his hands!

Love that Stroller!

Gavin got into our new jogging not so gracefully! He likes it!

More Blackmail Photos

Gavin loves my shoes, for some reason; he tries to put them on himself. I helped him because he couldn't quite put them on right. He wanted to wear my flip flops, I thought these would be easier to walk in. Hehehe.

He loves those wheels...

...quite literally!

A day with some cousins

Gavin and I spent last Friday with some of the cousins at Uncle Lee and Aunt Staci's house. Aunt Staci was at a funeral out of state and Lee was in meetings. We had a pretty good day together! I hope they all had fun, too!

I saw that on our friends' computer you can make pictures into a slide show video. It's using the same program I normally use for videos. Let me know what you think!

Still "Reading"

Gavin still LOVES to read his books, this time he was "reading" the cereal box!





Here he is on the changing table using his knees to hold up the big book. It's a good way to distract him while I'm changing table. He HATES being changed! (And yes, I know it's messy in his room, we're using it partly as storage, but I need to work on it!!!)


Today he also went after his peek-a-boo book on the back of the couch and when I gave it to him, he was talking as he looked at it! He knows that is what you're supposed to do!

Our short term houseguest

Welcome to our home Matthew!

No we didn't adopt but Gavin is going to be sharing his mommy time with a friend during the day for the next few months. Our friend Dori has to go back to work and thus needed some daycare assistance, Jenny wanted to see what it is like to have two kids and earn the money to buy her new BOB Duallie Jogging Stroller, so we have a little experiment going. Little Matthew is a sweet boy and Gavin is getting to learn how to share his toys (even his spatula for a couple minutes).

Our Computer's Not So Happy!

Philip went to turn on the computer on Saturday afternoon and it wouldn't start up. He was turning it on to check the traffic before we went to our friends' house in the valley, so he had no time to fix it. We're hoping that it was just the power supply because it would really suck if I lost my recent work on Gavin's first year book. Anywho, my point is that I won't be posting much until it's fixed because we're borrowing a laptop form the friends I mentioned before. So, anyway, I'll try to do some quick entries, but no guarantees because the wireless internet is slower than the wired kind and I'd have to save pictures to the laptop that's not ours. We'll see what happens. Plus, I'm going to be started my daycare job tomorrow bright and early: 7:00am! Wish me luck!

There's someone on the loose!

I let Gavin wander pretty freely in the backyard; sometimes he wanders over toward the fence leading out of the yard and I guess it wasn't latched this time.

Play Time for Kitty

Gavin and I were in the backyard and I heard a tinkling of the cat's bell. Next thing I know, he's chasing the rabbit! It seemed to be harmless fun for the two of them. He never pounced on the rabbit or anything.

And so the embarrassment begins

On Monday, Gavin and I went shopping at Costco. I had the cart loaded and put a carton of eggs on top. I was wandering through the store wondering if I would find the last couple of items on my list (even though I'd been through the store once) and all of the sudden Gavin brought his hand around and he had an egg in it! As soon as I realized what was happening, crack! He crushed it in his fist and dropped it in the cart! He had turned around and ripped open the egg carton and snagged an egg when I wasn't paying attention. I was pretty much done anyway, so I took off for the check stand. I'll spare you the details, but I got help at the check stand and there were probably half a dozen items with egg on them, it wound up on the floor and the person behind me wiped it up, the checker had it on his hands, and the box girl said, "That was just one egg?" They were even nice enough to go get me another set of eggs. Kids definitely keep things interesting!

Looks so innocent, doesn't he? The egg is marked in the picture.

The Further Adventures of Spatula Boy Movie

Spatula Boy takes a bath

He really did have it in the tub with him.

Everything in its place

Gavin LOVES to put things in and out and in and out over and over and over again. One time I opened a cupboards and guess what I found, a spatula!

He's experimenting with what fits where and why. I don't think this was the best place for his spatula: the junk drawer, along with the flea medicine and crazy glue. We really need to get on fixing that child safety that is broken on that drawer and the knife drawer. He doesn't take things out of that drawer and I NEVER let him play with the knives, but for when we can't be every place at once, I know it's best to have it proofed.