First Day For Lou!

Today was Louie's first day of school and it went extremely well--no tears! He was a bit bashful at first, but was all smiles when we picked him up at the end of the day. With all the illness last week we missed the open house for both Lou and Ben's classes so they aren't able to ease into the year with the rest of the kids.

I think what helped was that so many of the kids from last year are in the class again--Alex, Jonah, Katie, Max, Jose, Katherine, Teddy, and more, if I can remember them. The teachers are Miss Cathy and Miss Jean, and they seem really nice. What appears to be a trend, though, is the "all business" attitude of the assistant teacher. I imagine you need a bit of both with a room full of 18 4-year-olds!

I'll have to scan them in so you can see them, but he already came home with a backpack full of drawings! A cute idea that they did was to have the kids draw a picture of themselves on the first day of school. Lou drew a picture of himself standing in the rain--but with a smile on his face :)

Thursday is Benny's first day and Louie's second day. I'll definitely have pictures of that. I think it'll help Ben, knowing that Lou is right down the hall from him.

The 2nd Annual Charlie-J.T. Ballgame

When we first got pregnant with Louie we didn't have any friends that were even thinking about having kids yet, as far as we were aware. Four years later we know quite a few more expanding families. One of Charlie's buddies is J.T., who was born two months before him and last year we started the tradition of going to a Reds game with just the two boys with their mommies and daddies.

We lucked out with a gorgeous day and the only thing that could spoil it was the overwhelmingly large amount of blue in the stands. I love Chicago and have always had a great time visiting, but if there's something that I don't like it's Cubs fans. (Here is my rant for the day:) As with most teams I don't like*, it has more to do with their fans than with the actual team (!cough!buckeyes!cough!**).

I wholeheartedly believe in loyalty and supporting a team through thick and thin, but it reaches a new level of obnoxiousness with these fans. (Who boos the home team when they're visiting?) There was nothing better than sending them packing for their five hour trip with a bottom of the ninth loss, as well as a series loss!

The boys were great! All kids 15 and under got posters of the Reds rookie phenom Jay Bruce. They particularly liked that--had fun using them as swords! They handled quite a few innings before the urge to run and play took over and the dads took them up to the kids area. Back for a few and then the moms strolled through the concourse to get them to take a nap.

Can you tell that Charlie's ready for a nap? He soon got one, but was awake by the time the Reds won.

The rest of the team is pounding on Jolbert Cabrera in celebration after he hit in the winning run.

Woo-hoo! Send those Cubbie fans home!

What a great family!

I got my first glimpse of the newest Reds mascot, Rosie Red. She is completely adorable and I don't care what people say, she's a great addition. Missy told me each game she sports a different hair-do!

Thank you to Missy & Joe for inviting us on this outing. We look forward to the days when the boys play ball together!

*F.Y.I. I do not (try to!) impose my thoughts on the boys. In fact, Lou has been pretending to be the Cubs lately when he plays baseball.
**Hopefully I don't upset my in-laws too much with this--ha, ha

It's on its way out (finally!)

Last Saturday and Sunday nights Charlie and I were up the majority of the sleeping hours because the poor little guy had these terrible coughing fits every time he was in the horizontal position. I soon joined him in this state of illness and the thought occurred to me that if I was feeling this bad, how terrible it must be for a 13-month-old to be going through this!

This week has gone by in a blur. I felt like that commercial a few years back where they had cartoon characters with colds whose heads were like balloons and were walking in clouds. The days dragged on because the boys didn't want to cooperate and didn't understand what Mommy was going through. They flew by because by the time Kevin got home I realized I hadn't done much more than feed and clothe the boys.

Luckily for Charlie, he's been sleeping through the night and is down to having only a runny nose. My voice is a bit raspy with a cough, but I too am so much better than I was at the beginning of the week. Keep your fingers crossed that the other two rascals and their papa don't get it now!

You heard it here first...

In the paper today there is a special section on the Bengals and it has two big pictures of Carson Palmer and Marvin Lewis. When I was explaining what Marvin's job is (i.e. telling players what to do, help them get better), Louie informs me that it God's job. God will help the Bengals.

If the Bengals are God's team this year, things are looking up for us!

And by the way, Louie also says that Babe Ruth is up in heaven helping the Reds. Maybe he's been hanging out at the hot dog stand all season, because the help he's giving us isn't getting us anywhere.

Sticker Day!

Well, it's not officially called "sticker day," but I wish the excitement of picking out a sticker outweighed the actual cost of the stickers.

The cost: we went to the doctor for Ben's 3-year-old checkup and not only did he have to get a shot, but both he and Lou got the flu mist up the nose. Oh the horror!

I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to do this by myself. Those boys are getting strong and with all the flailing around I don't think I'll have the ability to restrain them in future appointments.

Charlie thought it was all pretty funny.

Update: Ben is up to 37 lbs. and 38 inches.

Connections

My Grandpa gave my mom a "brag book" my grandma had when I was little. Being the first born, I dominated the book and it was neat to see a small window into that part of my life that I was not completely aware of. What's also neat is to see that there's a pretty good chance that Charlie is my baby.

Yes, I realize that I was present during the gestation and birthin' of my three sons, but when you see a picture of yourself and then a picture of your baby and see all the similarities, you begin to fully realize how babies are amazing miracles.



OK, maybe he doesn't look like me at all, but when your firstborn is the exact replica of your husband and your middle-born is made from the same mold as your brother, you start looking for similarities where there might not be any.

Labor Day Weekend

We had a busy weekend: three different cities to meet with family over the holiday weekend. Our first stop was in Aurora at Uncle John and Aunt Mary's property where corn-on-the-cob was abundant and the games never stopped. The boys played ping-pong, pop-a-shot, golf, badminton, and tether-ball, among other things. The only thing that wasn't played (amazingly!) was baseball there wasn't a good area to hit because of the hills.

All week long Charlie has had a runny nose and we attributed it to the fact that he has two huge teeth breaking through his gums. We were wrong this time. All Saturday night he was coughing this terrible dry hack and couldn't sleep. It was awful. I couldn't figure out what to do for him.

Uncle Billy rallies our side of the family in a fierce game of badminton.

Cousin Tommy is the tickle-monster for Charlie.

Nothing gets you ready for the day than a rousing game of tether-ball.

Uncle John's log cabin. Most of the people blew up air-mattresses and stayed in the house or out in the building.

We stayed in the tent at the bottom of the hill.

After we had a delicious breakfast, which included "Mickey Mouse" pancakes, we headed up to Columbus to visit some more family. It was such a hot day so they went swimming then came back to the house to play in the backyard. It was a very nice evening, spent playing with Uncles Nick, Jeff, Jay, and Aunt Jill. Soon we were off to bed to rest for the next day, the family picnic up at Great-Grandpa's house in Mercer County.

Uncle Jeff had to head back to "Washington ABC" as the boys call it, so he could only stay for lunch. We played baseball, bean bags, and attempted to take a nap under the trees. It was nice to see everyone, and we had a lot of fun, but boy, are we glad to sleep in our own beds this week!

Uncle Jeff with the boys by the corn field next to Great-Grandpa's house