Jesse’s Birthday

Jesse’s birthday happened to be this Saturday.  Oliver and I made a Jello Cake, which is his favorite.  Oliver did a really good job helping me make it.  While we were waiting for the cake to cool, we decided to run to the shoe store, so Jesse could pick out his birthday present.

Right next to the shoe store was a toy store.  I told Oliver if he was good we would run into the store before we left.  He was pretty busy running around the shoe store and Bella was fussing up a storm.  So we left Jesse in peace to pick out his shoes and we headed into the toy store.

This particular toy store was pretty much made just for boys.  It was all model cars, planes, construction equipment, farm equipment, etc.  The prices were pretty high, but they did have a few smaller items.  Oliver found a bus.  He absolutely wanted the bus.

Just a few days prior Oliver and I had run errands and while in Target I told him he could play with the toys for a little bit, but we would not be buying anything.  When it was time to go, he threw a little bit of a fit, but I told him his birthday was coming up and he could ask for his favorite items and hopefully get them.

This time around, he threw a major fit.  He tried to sneak out of the store with the bus a couple of times.  I finally had to grab him and put the bus back in the bin.  Oliver was crying and kicking with arms flailing everywhere.  One handedly I held him as I pushed Bella in her stroller back out to the car.  I told Oliver that if he was going to act this way, we were going to sit in the car.  Again I reminded him,  his birthday was coming up soon and maybe he would get the bus for his birthday.  He proceeded to cry in the car.  When Jesse made it back out to the vehicle he was still sobbing over his bus.

As we drove home (still sobbing) out of the blue he sadly said “Daddy I don’t like your birthday”.

Poop....and other random thoughts

  So Oliver might be cracking us up lately with the use of this word.  He likes to add the words "potty" and "Ewww" along with it as well.  The other day on the way home from the grocery store (Hen House so he can get his free cookie at the bakery), I asked him if he pooped cause it kind of smelled in the car.  He then looked at me and said "poop", pulled back his shorts, attempted to "look in", and said "Ewww".  Cracked me up... and we got home and checked and he hadn't done any business at all.  So he might be crying wolf a lot lately with his "poop" statements, but it's rather humorous for the time being.

  My name is Jesse and I have an addiction to sweets.  Fricken sweets ruin my diets.  We've got a couple weeks to our long anticipated vacation, I need to be slimming down to my beach bod status (if any of you saw the yard pictures from this past weekend, you know what I'm referring to), and all I want to do is eat sweets after dinner.  It also doesn't help when people bring in desserts all the time to work.  Everyday I tell myself that this is the day I will make it through without eating anything bad... everyday I fail and remind myself that tomorrow will be the day.  Cant blame a guy for trying.

  I was reminded that it was Easter of last year when I ate 4 Reese's peanut butter eggs (the big ones) in 15 minutes and was in pain that evening.  I get severe back pains which make it hard to breathe, and that night they were extremely bad and I considered going to the ER.  Since that episode and many doctor appts, I have attributed this to overeating and/or eating particular foods.  Kristen finally suggested after my peanut butter egg episode that I might have gall bladder issues.  So a couple months later after numerous tests and lab work, I was diagnosed with a malfunctioning gall bladder that becomes inflamed when I eat fatty foods.  So what's a guy to do... not go to an all you can eat buffet and binge or have the organ removed??? hmmm... and it's sad to think I was actually considering the latter for some time.  I went in and saw a general surgeon and he informed me that since there was no risk for infection, it was totally my call and that the only benefit I could potentially receive from having it removed would be that I wouldn't experience the side affects I currently do from over eating.  So I opted to keep my gall bladder and try to part with my addiction to over eating.  Its been a struggle and I have paid the consequences with severe pains when I overeat, but its a friendly reminder to keep my diet in check.  Another thing that I have found  interesting is that if I am experiencing those weird back pains, that going for a run helps... must be something to do with the breathing (panting)... but its good to know that there is a quick fix if I do have a bad day.

  So that was more than people care to know about my internal organs... what else?  Kristen does update the ticker on our nights of sleep... pretty depressing but its just a part of life anymore.  Its something that I expect to get up during the night, and if we do experience a night without interruption... we are usually asking each other in the morning if we got up during the night, and we cant remember what night was what... but I'd definitely say of the 100 days so far this year, we are closer to 0 than we are to 50.... and life goes on.

  I've really been in a concert mood lately and when I heard Mumford and Sons was coming to KC, I was thinking we should get tickets even though it was on a Monday night.  They supposedly sold out the morning they went on sale... so I guess we can purchase them off stubhub if we really want to go.  I would say that my top three concerts ever (the ones I can remember, so that removes a bunch)... would be OAR, Counting Crows, and Coldplay... I have a feeling Mumford might top them all.  Anymore I just want to go and chillax with a couple brewskies and enjoy the music.  Might have to hit a couple concerts this summer.

 

  It's springtime and you know what that means... the ants come marching into the kitchen... they must have nested in the walls of this house for years.  Pest control will be coming out next week.

  Ohh yeah, I think I still have a tile project I need to finish.  The plan is to complete the placement of the tiles and grouting this weekend.  We will see how much actually gets done.

Till next time...

Craig's List – I am not a fan as of late

Here is Jesse's mysterious post....back again in all it's glory for everyone to read.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great website to use if you want to get rid of a bunch of crap you no longer want in your house.  Next time you're considering hauling something away or putting it out by the curb to fill up our landfills, I suggest you at a minimum “Craig's list it” under the “free” stuff.  I guarantee someone will come get it.  When we gutted the basement bathroom, I took out the shower/tub unit and put it out by the curb for the trash to come get.  I would have to pay a fee of course, but it’s the convenience.  Well, since I had a week for it to sit there, I decided to take a couple pictures (this thing had not been cleaned) and posted it for $20.  Within an hour I had multiple people interested and drove to our house and loaded it up and hauled it away… and I made money on the deal… not too shabby.  So for instances like these, I do like Craig’s List.
(Disclaimer - I am not trying to throw Kristen under the bus here… just telling a story.  I probably look like the jerk anyways, so let’s proceed)
However, my wife has started a trend that I am not too fond of.  Namely, she’s finding random pieces of furniture (for cheap – so that’s the one positive side), and purchasing them without consult.  She knows better than to ask me, cause we got enough “crap” around here that I cant seem to get things cleared out and put into organized storage. 
Let’s reflect on this past weekend.  I’m vacuuming, because that’s how I like to spend my Saturdays, and push open the door to the sewing/guest bedroom.  This room always frustrates me because we spent all this time renovating old bookshelves and cupboards so that she could have a place to store all of her sewing stuff but things don’t quite make it there or she has bought so much additional stuff that there’s no where for it to go.  This room is a pit and I am seriously getting pissed as I type.  Deep breaths.  OK… so I open the door to vacuum inside that room and two sitting chairs (from a hotel supposedly) greet me.  Just right in the frickin center of the walkway to the room.  It’s time for a “discussion”.
Trying to maintain my calmness (which left me in early childhood I think)… I ask when and where did these come from.  Deep down I hoped that these came from someone we knew, but knew the culprit was Craig's List, I just needed to hear it from her.   “A guy on Craig's list, he delivered them too,…. bla bla bla”  "So let me get this straight… you paid a guy $20 for a couple sitting chairs and he delivered them?… please tell me you inspected them for fleas/bed bugs/urine/etc. because that is probably why he was so eager to get them off his hands.  The inspection was lacking (go figure) but turns out that he allegedly ended up getting these from a hotel and had extra so Kristen wanted to make a project out of them.  So in the end, we have two chairs, that came from God knows where, and are infested with God knows what… sitting in a bedroom of our house… not in the unfinished messy basement where a person could take a dump on the floor and not know for a couple weeks… in a guest bedroom.  Would this disgust anybody else?  So as you can tell, I was not happy whatsoever about the chair purchase and let Kristen know… for about a half hour.  I would like to dispose of them by tossing them out the window onto the concrete below.  Sometimes things can be so random and who knows their history…if it sounds like its too good of a deal… 2 sitting chairs for $20 with delivery… it probably is.
Craig's List – I am not a fan

Jesse

And if you couldn't tell, this is in relation to my new reupholstered chairs. Go here if you haven't seen the finished product yet.

In my defense I did check them out and smell them before I moved them up into the guest bedroom/sewing room.  But I did purposely hide them because I knew Jesse would freak out when he found them.  My hope was the get the whole thing finished before he knew about it....but then he had to go and vacuum in there :-)

A little dose of hope

That's what I took away from my meeting with a priest on Wednesday. In raising a child like Bella, it can be really taxing and leave you with more questions than answers. When things continue to domino as they typically do with Bella, Kristen and I often wonder what we did wrong in our lives leading up to having Bella. It really does make a person reflect on every situation in life where I could have been a better person... and for me thats a lot of reflection.

I was very impressed with the knowledge of scripture, books, and stories that the priest shared with me... Not that I would expect anything less, but I was having a hard time trying to remember everything he was throwing at me. It was a very uplifting discussion. He provided me with some information to help me learn/remember more about Catholicism to strengthen my faith and help me be a better husband and father who lives in that faith, which up to this point in my life has been pretty difficult. I hope to improve.

We discussed our family situation with Kristen being Lutheran and myself Catholic, as well as life with Bella and Oliver and the daily struggles/challenges we have. He continued to quote Matthew 25 throughout our discussion which up until Wednesday met nothing to me.

35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

This scripture is everyones's path to eternal salvation, he reminded me.

He said that Kristen and I live this every day of our lives with our little angel Bella. He commended us for this. He related our situation to other biblical stories as well as real life. He tried his best to understand our situation and how attending weekly mass and keeping God first in our lives has been very difficult at times.

He reminded me that too often we get caught up in trying to figure out why, that we need to stop and just have some hope that the future will be better and God will help us along the way. Since Bella is such a unique case with no medical understanding of what to expect as she grows older, we have always lived off of hope.

All in all it was a very positive and spiritually uplifting conversation and I couldn't wished for anything different to come away from our conversation. I look forward to taking the whole family in to meet with him in the near future. Thanks to Kristen for the constant reminder of me not receiving communion for the past 8 years, to get my butt in gear and go talk to a priest about it... And thanks to the priest for welcoming a lost sheep back to his flock and turning it into a positive uplifting experience.

Jesse

WWJD

What Would Jesse Do? - probably find something to complain about... with perhaps a little humor.  Let's give it a shot.

So in response to Kristen's survey, I've heard there are a couple people out there that would like to hear from me.  I tried going out on my own with a blog but couldn't find the time and didn't have any followers... so  I guess I will try to make an effort to post once a week... maybe shoot for hump day each week with content  being whatever is on my mind... maybe do a recap of the previous week's events and add to those Kristen has already commented on with a Jesse spin on it.

Friday - The Kids slept through the night... BUT
   Kristen had to go and jinx it by posting about it.  I told her that she needed to just have a counter on the sidebar that she reset whenever the kids slept through the night.  That way when people saw that the counter was on day 137, they might realize that we go no frickin sleep around here :)  We do... just interrupted sleep... so we don't get the much needed REM sleep.  So YEAH for the kids on Friday... BOO for Kristen's post on Saturday because we have been paying for it since.

Saturday - Oliver's pukey day
   Poor kid had a couple episodes on Saturday night out of nowhere... he wasn't acting sick in the least all day, or during his episodes, but apparently it wasn't the "something he ate" that we originally thought it was.  Hint - see post Monday

Sunday - Tiling
   I don't think I could have complained anymore on this minor project... from mixing the 50lb bag of mortar unsuccessfully in a 5 gallon bucket to setting the tile in a "levelish" manner on the highly sloped un-level re-mortared brick hearth.  Originally thought tiling in the winter is not a bad idea, until you realize how easy it is to clean things off when you are outside with the hose when the temps are nice outside... instead I made a mess of the basement cutting tile, then mixing the mortar.  For mixing the mortar, I originally started by using a shovel, which the mortar powder adhered to and I had clean off later outside with the frigidly cold faucet water.  I then proceeded  to use my drill/mixer which made me think I was going to be buying a new drill once I burned the motor up cause I could smell it.  Once that was mixed, I proceeded to spread a significantly thick bed of mortar down to attempt to "level" up the surface... halfway FAIL... ohh well.  I set the tile and we will grout in the near future and it will look better than previously, but will still bother me that I know its not as level as it should be.

Monday - There's the good news & the bad news
   Bella had a dentist appt.  This was her first actual checkup because the local childrens hospital we took her to a couple years ago for a checkup was a complete joke.  The dentist and hygienist we go to yearly had previously communicated to us to go ahead and bring her in not knowing her full condition, but knowing she was disabled.  They were very gentle with her and I think it went better than expected.  I expected them to tell us that Bella would need to be put under for a routine cleaning, but they said to come back a couple more times for Bella to get acclimated to the environment and they would be happy to try.  The best news we received was that Bella has gotten all of her teeth, and is now getting in her 6 yr molars... so that has been her problem for the past half a year or more.  We were worried that her teeth might not be coming in, or that she was missing some, or who knows since she was born with a cleft palate, but all is well.  She will need braces and a little more care, but that is definitely doable.
  And the not so fun news.. so while we were at the dentist office, as Kristen's previous post alluded to... both her and I were feeling a little queasy.  Once we were back home, the "fun" began and proceeded through the night till about midnight... then we had a break until Bella started up at 130am.  During Oliver's bath that night, I was paying particular attention to his two rubber duckies.  For those who do not wish to know the specifics of our sickness, you can stop reading this post now.  I thought it was rather humorous that one of these rubber duckies had a whole in the bottom, which if filled with water, the ducky shoots it out his bottom side.  The other ducky has a hole in its beak... fill it with water and the ducky shoots it out his beak.  Out the bottom and out the top... perhaps at the same time and in a very similar "watery/spray" manner.  Too graphic for you?... May I humor you some more?  Don't mind if I do... I know some of you have been there before, so I'm just going to come out and say it.  So let's say I hypothetically wake up at 1030pm with the shakes and a sudden feeling of puking... I figured I didn't need to use the bedside trash can so I ran to the bathroom and crashed at the "used" toilet. That's never a pleasant thing to look at while you're bent over trying to puke, but let's move on.  As I kneel there next to the porcelain throne, I begin to question if it was the Deuce that was calling my number instead.  What if both happened at the same time and which position would I prefer to be in? I think a deuce in my pants is out of the question so I quickly swapped positions.  However, I did have to yell for Kristen to bring me the trashcan so I was ready for either.   Good times I tell ya... good times.  Then over the next 24 hrs we got to clean up our kids' (yes that plural) puke and diarrhea diapers... BOOM... The 24 hr Fluenza Extravagenza... Kuhlen style.  Glad its over with now and what a relief that we all got flu shots this year!

That pretty much wraps up the week.  Hope you have a fluenza free week and weekend.