The Lieslands

I put some new pics up. You can check them out at our picture page. All of our photos are password protected, so if you want the password, drop me a line.

Things appear to be stabilizing a bit at home. We have the kids on a pretty good schedule again. Andrew is still whiny for no reason and Mari is still extra-tired. Her teeth may be bothering her. Her teeth come in very slowly. Mari’s mystery rash has finally faded away.

Our cloth diaper adventures continue. Last week I order 24 children’s washcloths online to use as wet wipes. They are working very well. I think that we also finally have a good cloth diaper system to use at night. With Andrew out of diapers it has given us a little more breathing room to experiment.

Susan just called me after the dr and said that the Dr did a strep test, which we will find out about tomorrow. She said that her throat looked a little red, but it was not too bad.

We are still struggling to find our feet. We thought we had the kids back on their schedule a few days ago, but Andrew took another nap yesterday (is he still sick?) so he was up late. Neither of them have a fever anymore, but Mari is going to the Dr this afternoon because she has developed a strange rash.

We are supposed to have a La Leche League pot luck tonight, but Susan and Andrew may have to go alone, depending on what happens with Mari’s rash.

The weekend looks busy enough. I have a soccer game and Susan starts her prenatal yoga tomorrow morning. Hopefully we will have some good weather so that we can spend some time outside.

I was not looking forward to the time change. Mari had been getting up earlier and earlier every day. Then, the dreaded weekend was upon us. Friday night we were up late celebrating Holly’s birthday. I was optimistic that this would help them adjust to the time change. They were both up early on Saturday. Mari may have slept in, but Andrew was yelling “I need someone to put lemon juice on my stomach” at 6:15 in the morning. We got him his lemon juice and everything appeared to be back to normal. No big deal.

We were up late again on Saturday night, at BYOP (Bring Your Own Pumpkin). We stayed out late into the wee hours of the night (8:30 PM) carving pumpkins and eating cheesecake. At 2 in the morning Andrew was awake, this time with a fever. We got him some medicine and spent the rest of the night in the basement.

Since then we have been going to bed late (because when Andrew is sick he usually takes a nap, which causes him to stay up late) and getting up early. This morning Mari and I didn’t get up until 6, which is pretty good. Andrew slept until around 7:30. He appears to be getting better, but Mari is getting worse. She was back to bed by ten this morning and she now has the fever that Andrew had on Sunday. Hopefully this will all pass over the next couple days and we will return to our normal existence.

What else has been going on? Hmmm. . .

• Susan doesn’t have gestational diabetes
• Andrew’s potty training has been going OK. Sometimes he gets a little lazy, but he does well for the most part
• Mari is totally cool
• Soccer season won’t seem to end
• Andrew is going to be a clown for Halloween
• Mari is going to be some type of bird (I forget if it is a duck or chick costume)
• Our house is still for sale
• We are still enjoying the new minivan
• Susan is still on a special diet, where she doesn’t eat yeast and is avoiding refined sugars. This means at in general we are eating less pizza, which makes all of us sad
• I just order Mari’s one-year photo book, which is something that we are trying to get for all of our kids
• I am about to up for another year of Tracfone, our pay-as-you-go cellphone provider
• Susan and Andrew just finished up the fall session of Parents and Tots at the Cincinnati Waldorf School
• The Bengals are idiots, but I am doing OK in the Reagen Ranch football pool
• Susan and I are trying to figure out when we are going to be headed out West for the upcoming holidays
• Ani Difranco is apparently pregnant, which we were way out of the loop on

I think that’s it for now. Enjoy.

Andrew had another accidentless day yesterday. I am not sure if he made it all night without peeing in his diaper, but I am sure that he woke us up at 1:23 because he had to pee.

Yesterday we went to the Northside Farmers Market because Susan’s La Leche League group was selling baked goods, books and knit goods. It was one of those moments as a parent when I could just sit back (for a minute or two) and enjoy watching the kids learn and explore. Andrew and Mari are at a point right now where things are pretty predicatable. They have a good routine and are fairly trustworthy.

There were four deer eating breakfast in our back yard this morning. They would go behind the bushes and Mari would say “hiding.” When they came back out she would say “peak-a-boo!” I wonder if they even knew they were playing.

Tonight we are going to the Roman’s to share some pizza in celebration of Gabe’s 4th birthday. When we first met Gabe Susan was pregnant with Andrew and Gabe wasn’t even one yet. It is amazing to see how things have evolved over the past few years. I think these are thoughts I am supposed to have on my kids’ birthdays (and I do), but I also think that memories of Gabe will always persist because of my exposure to him while I was still in my parental infancy.

Yesterday was Andrew’s first day going an entire day without a diaper and without an accident. To top it off, he woke up this morning and the first thing he did was go to the bathroom. He did not go once in his night-time diaper, which is the second time he has done that. Things are going so well that Susan and I worry that he is going to regress.

It has been a while, which sometimes means that there has been a lot going on, and sometimes, not so much. This time, it is the former.

The past few weeks have been very busy. A few weekends ago we went on our first family camping trip, which was both fun and successful. The kids slept well and had a good time. There were no major problems and I think it is fair to say that a good time was had by all. It was our first time using our tent which we got last Christmas. With the new baby due in Feb, it looks like it could be a while before we go camping again.

Susan’s parents came to visit the next week. They came in on a Thursday and left the following Wednesday. While they were here we had a great time. Our exploits included a trip to a pumpkin patch and catching a short view of the Tall Stacks parade. We couldn’t stay long because once one of the boats blew their whistles Andrew informed us that he had seen enough.

Susan parents were also in town for another big event: Andrew’s third birthday. It is hard to believe that it has been three years. Andrew was very excited about his birthday. He now takes great pride in telling people he is three. Just this morning he told me that he is still growing and that he isn’t going to stop until he is as big as I am. I told him to take his time.

Along with turning three, Andrew has also decided that he is ready to start potty training. He is doing very well with it. Right now we usually have about one accident a day. Sunday was his first day without wearing any diapers and he did very well. He even managed to pee at the zoo, which was his first time peeing in a public restroom.

Mari continues to amaze me with her speech and how well she understands us. She seems to be picking up new words every day. She is getting much more social and loves to play with Andrew.

Susan’s belly has finally started to protrude. The other day I got to feel the baby moving around. Susan is doing well. Yoga starts in a few weeks, which will hopefully help keep her back from hurting.

We are still trying to sell our house and actually just took down our ‘For Sale By Owner’ sign and signed up with a Realtor. Hopefully the extra exposure will help us. In the 2.5 months that we were doing it ourselves we only had three people look at the house.

That’s all for now. I hope to get some new pics up soon.

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We had our ultrasound this morning, which is always exciting. No, we did not find out the sex, but we did get to see the normal array of strange pics. The coolest part this morning was seeing how active the baby was and seeing limbs move across the screen. Andrew and Mari were both present. Andrew watched very intently and was interested in what was going on. Mari was not as interested, but every now and then she would point to the monitor and say “baby.”

After about a week, Craig’s List came through for us and we found a buyer for the car. We are down to two cars now, which is good.

We are going to be meeting with some realtors early next week to talk about the house and see what kind of services they can offer (& for how much).

After years of waiting, I finally have my minivan. I have been wanting a minivan for a while now, and Susan and I finally bought a 2001 Mazda MPV.

We had to get a minivan because when we have another kid in Feb we need to have room for all of the carseats.

Things have been very busy lately. We are still trying to sell our house, and now we are also trying to sell Susan’s Sonata. Neither of these processes are going very fast. We are thinking about getting a realtor soon, to help the house go faster.

Mari is walking. She finally kicked it into gear about ten days ago and loves to walk. She loves to go outside and walk down the sidewalk.

I put some new pics up.

Susan is starting to show a little bit.

I think that’s it for now. We’ll keep you updated.

It is taking her a while to catch on, but Mari is walking more and more every day. Here is a short little video of one of her latest attempts.