Marlin

The boys and I watched "Finding Nemo" yesterday. It had been a few years since I had seen it (and then I don't think I was paying too much attention), but this time I sat with the boys on the couch and watched it - and it was really good.

The home situation was a lot different a few years ago and if I had really watched it then, I don't think I would have gotten the same message out of it. You see, it didn't register with me when I first saw the movie that Marlin, Nemo's dad, was a single father. Yes, after the unfortunate death of Coral and all of her eggs but one by the barracuda, Marlin was left to care for Nemo as a single parent.

As the movie shifts ahead in time, Marlin is overprotective of Nemo - partially because Nemo has one bad fin, but I think mostly because Nemo is the only offspring of his to survive and Marlin wants to make sure nothing bad happens to him. As Nemo gets older, he starts trying to do things his father is asking him not to - testing both what he is able to do as well as to see how his father will react.

Later in the film, when Marlin and Dory are looking for Nemo, Dory has a great quote when she tells Marlin that he should let Nemo experience things on his own, otherwise Nemo would never experience anything. Its a great animated film, one of the best I've ever seen, and I'm sure we will be watching it again.

Commando

So I took the boys to Scalliwags on Thursday with Kate and Isabel. Nobody else from the group could make it - but they missed a great time!

The boys love to crawl around the gym, go down the big slide in the giant bouncy house, and ride around in the cars and on the tricycles in the toddler room. Isabel had not been to Scalliwags before and she was a little scared of the big bouncy house at first but she soon was running around on her own enjoying the indoor playground.

At one point, Daniel came out of the bouncy house without his pants on - just wearing his diaper. The other parents were laughing as I asked Daniel what happened to his pants, and Daniel said that Leo took them. Soon Leo came out of the bouncy house holding Daniel's pants. He must have grabbed a hold of them while Daniel was going down the slide.

Then, a little while later, Daniel walked up to me with his pants part of the way down and I couldn't see his diaper. So I checked to see if maybe his diaper had slid down further into his pants - but there was no diaper. I asked Daniel what happened to his diaper and he said he threw it in the trash. Daniel was going commando! So I led him to the bathroom to get a new diaper on, but it certainly was a funny moment.

27 Mhz

Wow, what a Christmas. The boys were very excited - but were so tired from a late Christmas Eve party that they slept until 7. They still didn't understand the concept of the stockings, which they skipped in favor of the bigger presents under the tree.

There were a few gifts from relatives that were a little young for them, so I think I'm going to save those for Toys for Tots next year. Just about everything else they got they absolutely love. Its funny, sometimes its the less expensive gifts that they really go for. I got Daniel a LeapPad and Leo a Leapster, and they aren't really too interested in them right now.

Instead, their favorite toys are the remote control monster trucks. I got the first one on a super sale at Kohl's on Black Friday (at 5:30 am!) and it didn't cost too much. Then, later in the day while at Wal Mart, I bought the second one, also on sale. I thought I was smart by getting different types of trucks that they would be able to play with them together (knowing that remote controls for the same kinds of trucks wouldn't allow them both to play at the same time). Well, I was foiled! It turns out that both trucks run on 27 Mhz - meaning that the remote controls for both trucks can run either truck, and that if they are both on at the same time then neither of them can really run their truck separately. I looked back through the instruction book and found that you can also get trucks that run on 49 Mhz. So it looks like I will need to go out and get another truck so that they can play with their trucks together.

12-16 Video of the week

Like Father, Like Son - think about it.

Ten best songs of 2007

Here's what I listened to in 2007. Enjoy!


1. James Morrison – "Under The Influence"

2. KT Tunstall - “Saving My Face”

3. Snow Patrol – “Chasing Cars”

4. Kaiser Chiefs – “Love’s Not A Competition”

5. Silversun Pickups – “Lazy Eye”

6. Radiohead – “Jigsaw Falling Into Pieces”

7. Fall Out Boy – “This Ain’t A Scene Its An Arms Race”

8. Modest Mouse – “Dashboard”

9. Keane – “Is It Any Wonder”

10. The Killers – “Read My Mind”

Snow

Wow - where did all of this snow come from?



I got a call at work that daycare was going to close at 3:00 due to the weather. The snow started falling in Boston around 1:00. I left at 2, thinking that I'd get to the school around 2:15 when the boys were waking up from their naps. The Mass Pike was practically a parking lot already so I barely made it to the school by 3:00. That's right, an hour to go 4 miles!

Finally got the boys into their snow gear and left school at 3:30. The Mass Pike back into Boston the other way had been all backed up so I figured that maybe the Pike westbound might move a little faster after the toll booths, then I would circle around the south of Boston on 128. Now as I'm sitting here looking back, that was a really stupid decision on my part.

As soon as I got on the Pike it was gridlock. I had brought along Leo's favorite movie, which they watched twice by the time we got to 128. That's right, almost 2 hours to go 8 miles.

Then, once on 128, there were jacknifed trucks and stalled cars that we slowly weaved in and around as I put on the Lion King and pulled out snacks for the boys I had tucked away. We finally got home at 7:30 - a 4-hour drive in the falling snow! Might have been cut down to 2 hours if I'd gone the other way, but the boys were pretty good most of the way so I can't complain.

12-5 Ten tips from last week

1. When you don't put the kids' names on their mittens at daycare, the mittens disappear.

2. When you do put the kids' names on their mittens at daycare, one mitten disappears.

3. Kohl's does not have kids' waterproof mittens.

4. If your kids use a night lite, always have extra night lite bulbs on hand - or an extra night lite.

5. When someone sets up a "quick" nature hike through the woods with the kids, first find out how long the hike is really going to be.

6. Gingerbread men somehow always end up getting their heads chewed off first.

7. When you hire a landscape company to do a Fall cleanup to get all of the leaves off your lawn, make sure it gets done before the first snowfall of the season happens.

8. Kids absolutely love the first snowfall of the year.

9. Let the kids put whatever ornaments they want on the tree - then re-arrange them while the kids are sleeping so the ornaments don't break.

10. Its easier to wrap Christmas presents when the kids are sleeping - young'uns don't understand gifts to relatives that need to be shipped weeks before Christmas.

12-4 Video of the week

Jingle Bells from Leo and Daniel:

Christmas picture

I've been wanting to take Leo and Daniel to Sears or Target to get some pictures taken - but never seemed to have the time. So, part of the reason the tree is up early was in order to take some pictures myself with the boys in front of the tree and use those as inserts for my Christmas cards. Of course, you never know if there will be one that is good enough - so you take a bunch and hope for the best.

Leo, of course, didn't want to wear the white shirt. And then, once I got them in front of the tree, Leo kept making funny faces. Kinda cute, but not anything you want to send out to all your friends and relatives. Daniel also has a nasty bruise under his left eye when he fell off a slide at school the other day, but that's easily remedied by a little photoshop.

This one turned out pretty good - captured them in between when I told them I was going to take the picture. So this is the one I'm going to use.

Christmas Tree

So, the Christmas tree is up. Leo and Daniel were excited the past couple of days as I was preparing them for today. Both of them wanted to be my 'helpers'. So after breakfast, I got the tree out of the basement and began putting it together. Now, as artificial trees go, this one's pretty easy. But Leo still got impatient as he was demanding to be the one to put the star on top.

I finished assembling it and turned the lights on - and Leo and Daniel clapped their hands. I soon found the star in the ornament box, then both Leo and Daniel each had a turn putting the star on top (with me holding them up high so they could reach). Of course, later in the day I had to re-do the star to make sure it would stay.

We then began putting ornaments on the tree, which the boys soon got bored of, so we called it quits, got dressed, then went to the store to buy some new waterproof mittens. After lunch and naps, we visited a friend of mine, then had dinner, baths, bedtime stories, and Leo and Daniel were soon in bed asleep. That's when I finally got around to finishing the tree.