The Lieslands

Let’s just say that some change is on the way. We are not exactly sure when, but it is coming.

The past few weeks have been pretty good to us. Mari finally got over the hump and has started crawling. We are working on some video, but it seems like whenever we get the camera out she stops crawling. She appears to like getting around, which works out well most of the time. It does present some problems, such as it being easier for her to get into Andrew’s things.

Andrew continues to do well. He is always surprising us with how much he is learning.

Susan made some great May Crowns for the kids’ May Festival at the Waldorf School. I will get some pics up in the photo section soon and put up some links when I do. They turned out great. Next up: knitting. We tried to figure it out the other day from a book, but we didn’t get too far.

I have been up to the same old stuff lately. I go to work. I have been running several times a week, which is great. Soccer is going well. We just have a few more games left.

Julie finally moved in. Wait a second, Julie? “Who is that?” you might be wondering. Julie is our friend who is going to be living with us for a few months. She finally moved in this week and her presence in the house will certainly add a little twist on the everyday routine.

That’s all for now. Check back soon for some great video of Mari getting around and some pics of the May Crowns.

UPDATE: I put some video of Mari crawling on the cute kids page and I added some Easter and May Crown pics to our photo page.

Having kids is crazy. I think that most of the people who read this have kids, but if you don’t have kids then there is one thing you need to know: it is crazy.

The past few weeks have not been an exception.

Anyways, here we are near then end of April. Mari is getting cuter and cuter. The more she does, the cuter she is. Andrew is awesome. He has his downtimes, but in general, he is awesome. Nothing makes me happier these days than seeing Andrew and Mari play together. Maybe happy isn’t the right emotion. Maybe it is.

Susan and I had a great relationship with a jogging stroller for a couple of weeks, but we had to give it back. Our hearts are broken. Mostly it was nice because it allowed us to run together. We are on the lookout for another one.

We recently added some good stuff to our movie review page.

The Reds are doing OK.

PJ played their first show of the season last night.

My soccer team is 1-1, with the chance to avenge our loss tomorrow.

FIFA World Cup 2006 starts in a few weeks.

Should we join the zoo or renew our children’s museum membership?

Yesterday’s post didn’t quite cut it, so I will try again:

Mari has her first ear infection. She has been a little fussy/clingy for a while. Susan and I kept lieing to ourselves and saying that it was her teeth, but eventually she forced our hand. Two nights ago she cried, which she doesn’t do very often. We finally gave her some Tylenol and she had one of her best sleeping nights ever. Yesterday morning she was still fussy, so we took her in. We paid the obligatory $25 to have someone look in her ear and say, “Yep, she has an ear infection.” Then we paid the obligatory $10 for the amoxicillin, and we are on our way. This morning she was back to her old self: smiling, sitting in her seat for more than three minutes, eating cheerios. Only 27 more doses and we are in the clear.

Spring. I love Spring. Who doesn’t? Maybe people who make their living shoveling snow; but I bet they like the break. This Spring has me a little more excited than usual.

Our Kids:
I was talking with one of my friends who is finishing up here at Xavier. He was telling me about how he spent his Spring Break in Costa Rica, and all of the things he did. He asked me what I have been up to. I said, “Nothing.” Sounds pretty boring, but now that I have kids “Nothing” is pretty exciting. Having kids makes even the most mundane things interesting, exciting, and fun. As the weather gets nicer I look forward to walks, playing in the backyard and at the park, eating dinner outside on our picnic table.

Visitors:
We love having visitors. Susan’s sister, Mary, Mary’s son, Luke, and Susan’s mom, Kathie, just left after visiting for a few days. Susan’s dad, Gary, comes to town tomorrow night, and Susan’s mom comes back Monday.

Weddings:
The next six months bring five weddings in our direction, starting in May: three in Cincinnati, one is Chicago, and one in Denver. Along with these weddings come several wedding showers.

Those are the big ticket items. Here are the small ones:

• Soccer starts Saturday
• Reds’ Opening Day is April 3rd
• Pearl Jam in Detroit on May 22nd
• Our second anniversary
• Getting to use our new tent (Simon and Rachel’s backyard, here we come!)

I think that will do.

Mari has her first ear infection. She cried a lot last night. We were finally able to get her to go to bed by giving her some Tylenol and she actually had one of her best sleeping nights ever. She was still fussy this morning so we took her in. At least now we know what is wrong.

This Spring will be an exciting time around our house. There is no big news, but there is a lot happening. Susan’s sister, Mary, Mary’s son, Luke, and Kathie just left after visiting a few days. Gary is coming to town this weekend, and Kathie flies back in on Monday. We also have soccer starting up, weddings, showers, PJ in Detroit. Our weekends are filling up fast. Hopefully we will still have plenty of time to enjoy our back yard. I also can’t wait to put our tent to use.

That’s all for now.

Andrew and Mari both have little colds. For the past two nights Susan and I have spent a lot of time lying there wondering if we are going to have to get up. Both nights I have come very close to trying to give Mari medicine. Andrew sleeps through his stuffiness ok, as does Mari; but for the past two nights Mari has had long fits of coughing. She does not wake up and I don’t know how. Crazy.

We also think that Andrew’s cold is making him a little whiney. Last night, instead of joining us for dinner, he laid on the couch trying to collect himself. After we were finished he insisted on eating a granola bar for dinner, which we insisted on not doing. Finally, we let him get some yogurt out of the fridge. He complained for about five minutes becuase the spoon that Susan was trying to give him to eat his yogurt with was his spoon. Finally we convinced him that Susan was giving it to him. Then he was mad because there was a lot of yogurt on the spoon. We got him a fresh spoon and he did ok for a few minutes, before he accidentally got a lot of yogurt on the spoon again. This put him over the top, so I called it and we put him to bed.

He did go to bed a little early, which was nice because it allowed Susan and I to watch Related, which we had taped from the night before. This show is really growing on me.

After Related we watched Scrubs, which is always a little wacky/enjoyable. Last night’s show was a good one for me. I had been stressed out all day because Pearl Jam announced Leg 1 of their tour schedule. I was pretty annoyed because they weren’t coming very close to Cincinnati and since the other parts of the tour have not been announced yet, it is hard to plan. Note: Leg 2 of the tour has already been leaked and it looks like they are still not coming close to Cincy. From the looks of things they are not playing in regions that supported Bush in ’04. Weird and stupid, I think. Anyway, at the end of Scrubs they played Long Road, a good PJ song. Coincidences are weird. Sure, it was a coincidence, but it was also a connection. Isn’t that what life is about? Maybe, maybe not. Something to think about.

Who wants to go to Cleveland on May 20th? I think that I am.

Warmer weather and rain are on the way. Mr. Schweppes’ cute little purple & white lawn flowers are popping up, a sure sign of Spring.

Wild Women Wednesday (or something like that) tonight. Clogging tomorrow night. PJ tickets on Friday at 10 AM PST.

We’ve added some movies to the movie review page.

I think that is all for now. We’ll keep you updated. . .

It has been a while, I know. I’m sorry. I said “I’m sorry.” Is that not good enough for you? You are never satisfied.

Anyways, we just got back from a good trip to Des Moines. It was kinda’ spur-of-the-moment, which we don’t get much of anymore, so it was nice. The kids slept really well, which is always a treat. I guess I could have stayed up past 9 PM, but you never know when we are going to be up in the middle of the night. (That’s not necessarily true. Sometimes I know I am going to be up in the middle of the night. I guess it would be more correct to say “You never know when you are going to get a full nights sleep.) There, that’s better.

Good time was had by all in Des Moines. It is always fun to hang out with the Western Extension of our family. Good weather. Good walks. Good cheesecake. I will never forget the Vanilla Ice/Ton Loc concert. OK, so we didn’t go to the concert, but just the fact that there was one makes me happy.

Let’s see. Backwards. Hung out with the fam. Went to Church. Leftover pizza. Colin’s basketball game. Rural Illinoisite came one whole hour early to pick up the R-cade. Pizza. Starbucks. Playground. Walk. Lunch at Mary’s. Panera. Figure Skating (though I cheated and knew who won.) Burritos. HyVee. Jason’s Deli. Tuna Casserole. Now I am just confused. It was fun.

We decided to go on Sunday, hit the road on Monday after I got off work. Andrew fell asleep right away (at 5:15 PM). We hit some strange dead animal around eight. Got a flat tire 5 minutes later. Spent the night at a Super 8, which is also where we stayed when we got stuck in a snowstorm in 2004. We had the tire replaced with tires for all seasons the next morning and were on the road again by 9.

Previous to this trip, we have all been trying to get over weird sicknesses. We all seem to be stuck with perpetual colds. This of course led to Andrew having an ear infection, and pink eye. Mari is also very clogged up. I think that we need some spring, and some sleep.

I am ready for spring. Walks after dinner. The playground. Open windows. Flowers. Shorts & sandals. Baseball. Soccer. Should be a fun one with Mari and Andrew.

New Pearl Jam album May 2.

I’ll keep you updated.

I thought that the main subject of this post was going to be the fact that Andrew peed in the toilet for the first time this weekend, but Mari just trumped that one. Susan just called and said that the police just stopped by our house to check in on a 9-1-1 hang-up. Susan thinks that Mari must have been the culprit.

Anyways, Andrew peed in the toilet this weekend. I did not witness it, but I believe that Susan is telling the truth. On Sunday morning he stood in the dining room and said “Here comes by poop!” I tried to convince him to go use the toilet, but he responded with “No, it’s my poop.” OK.

Mari’s cold is trailing off. I am in the middle of mine. I can’t tell you what is going on with Susan’s. She wasn’t feeling too well yesterday, but she says that she is feeling better today.

We are coming off a good weekend, though it is hard to tell since we all feel like zombies. We got some yardwork done (spring-cleaning in January), hung out with some friends, and then on Sunday we got things re-organized around the house, which was nice.

I’ll keep you updated. . .

I added another page to the For Fun section today: a movie review page. Susan and I watch a lot of movies at night, so I thought maybe we should add a little more purpose to it and put some reviews out here for others to see what we thought.

I also added some more pics to the photo page.

Mari has a cold.

Susan is still running, though her ankle hurts.

I am tired, but not too tired.

I heard on the news this morning (at around 3:30 AM) that today is supposed to be the “Gloomiest Day of the Year.” Scientists “determined” this based on a number of factors, including weather, New Year’s resolutions, and the holidays. I don’t know if today will turn out to be the gloomiest day of our year, but hopefully it will be one of our tiredest. Mari’s sleep patterns have continued to decline. Last night I was up with her a lot, as was Susan. On top of that, Andrew was up early due to all the commotion. Mari and Andrew were both very congested, and she had a very little fever. Hopefully she is just working on some teeth.

Other than last night, things have been going well. We had a fun visit to the Contemporary Arts Center where we saw some cool exhibits and Andrew got to play in the “Unmuseum.”

Susan, Andrew and Mari made their way to Parents and Tots this morning. Susan says that Andrew is really cute and he tries to sing all the songs and do all the motions, even when he has no clue what they are. Mari was really tired this morning, so I can’t imagine that she was much fun. She really likes her personal space when she is tired, and that is hard to come by when you are a baby.

I hope to get some updated pics up soon, though we don’t have many.

After working for a couple of weeks, I have finally converted the website into its new form. This was partially because I was tired of the old scheme and partially in celebration of buying susanandrob.com. I have had the .org address for a while, but I finally got the .com, so I figured I better do something good.

Things are going well in Cincinnati right now. It is nice to have a little slow-down after the holidays so that Andrew, Mari, Susan, and I can spend more hanging-out time together.

The new year hasn’t brought too many changes. Andrew, Mari, and Susan began attending Parents and Tots again at the Cincinnati Waldorf School. I have been trying to run more. Susan has also started running again. We are looking for a double stroller so that we can run together. I guess we have a few more months before more kid-friendly running weather, but it has been so warm lately that we have had plenty of opportunities.

As always, we’ll keep you updated.

Wondering why there haven’t been any updates in a while? I am currently working on an entirely new look and feel for our website, so I haven’t had much time to mess with the blog. I expect to be finished in a week or two, so please check back later and see the new digs.

I’ll keep you updated.

Now that Mari is officially 6 months old, we have officially begun to feed her. Her first food was sweet potato, and yesterday Susan gave her a little rice cereal. Before we know it, I’m sure she’ll be eating pizza with the rest of us.

The holidays have brought some busy times upon us, as we have more to do than usual. We took last Sunday off, and didn’t leave the house one time. I think I should have at least gone to the grocery store. Oh well.

Andrew finally found his way into the recording studio. If you want to hear some of his work, check out the Cute Kids page on our website.

We’ll keep you updated.