Bird Baths

Kids and water, not really a bad combination. On the other hand, not exactly the best combination. So we have bird baths for birds to bath in, but mainly to ad to the curb appeal of our house's. We have swimming pools to swim in, but mainly to use to cool off in on a hot summer day. We have bath tubs to bath in or for some to soak in with cucumber slices over your eyes. We have sinks to wash dishes and to occasionally give our little ones a quick bath. We have toilets to..... well I doubt I need to elaborate on the purpose of a toilet. Wait, no, actually I do. As I am sure most of you know and are aware of our situation, we just got to Ft. Irwin. Which pretty much meant traveling up to 3/4 of the way around the world before we actually got here. Not to bad of an experience. My oldest son Aiden is now to the point where he needs to begin every parents dreaded nightmare of potty training. Well we decided that it would be best to wait until we get to Ft. Irwin to tackle this fight.

After arriving and getting settled in. We decided to start turning up the heat on Aiden and his potty training. I mean the kid is going to be 3yrs old in a couple of weeks. So I figured since he likes to get in the way when you try to do something....uh, I mean help! I thought it would be safe to go ahead and invite him to watch how daddy goes potty. Hopefully it would work. All it really did was spark more of an interest in how things really work, and no not his little pee pee. At first it started with him raising the toilet lid and toilet seat and then putting them back down. He would get nervous while flushing the toilet, but due to dad's ingenuity and creative thinking, I quickly conquered any fear he might have of the toilet and how it flushes. From there we actually went.......wait, don't let me get you all excited about how I got him potty trained in like two weeks, for that is still an up hill battle. However, I will tell you how he has turned the toilet in to his own little stadium. Yeah the other night I was on the couch watching t.v. (which translates into playing a video game) and I can keep on hearing Aiden yelling and then shortly after Jack would be giggling up a storm. So at the time I figured mom had them with her in the dining room playing a silly mommy and baby game, and Aiden was getting jealous so he had to participate by yelling as loud as he possibly could. So this goes on for about 10-15 minutes before I decide to get up and see what everyone else is having so much fun about. As I got up I had this slight vision in my head that the kids where in the bathroom playing in the toilet, and I was like no way in hell are they doing that. My kids are pretty well behaved and Aiden knows that the toilet is for our potty and not playing in. Well as I walk by the bathroom door to get tot he dining room, I notice that the bathroom door is open a little. Then that I had that flash back of the little vision, but once a gain I said no, not my boys. Just as I get about five steps past the bathroom door I see my wife bent over sweeping and no boys, when I hear Aiden yell really loud again. Without looking over the counter to see if they were in the kitchen I knew instantly that they weren't. So I turn around and slowly walk to the bathroom where I peak my head into the bathroom to find my kids. I stood there, not in awe or shock, but as in curiosity of how I was going to break the news to their mother. So I take a couple of steps back towards Jennifer and say, Honey (in a very calm voice) you need to stop what your doing and come and see what your boys are doing. Of course, I get that look. So as she walks over there Aiden yells again as I open the bathroom door to show my lovely wife that while Jack is splashing and playing in the water that is sitting in the toilet Aiden is flushing the toilet and yelling and Jack is laughing hysterically. Now if that isn't a mouthful, then what is.

As a parent what do you say to that. I actually struggled not to laugh. Didn't want the kids or the wife, to think that I am encouraging them. Actually I was thinking. And Jennifer wants to have more kids, and she hopes that all of them are boys. LOL. Well I guess I will be getting snipped with in the next couple of weeks.

Willy, Great Grandpa Willy

When I was a lot younger than I am now (oh I would say 23 yrs ago or so) I would get to take off on a vacation from my mom, brothers, and sister's for a week or so to my great grandparent's house. Well my Great Grandparent's lived about three hours away by car. Just a little bit to far for a morning bike ride (if you recall the story called Chasing Rainbow's). Well not only did I love and still do love my great grandparents, it really meant a lot to me being able to go to my great grandparents house for a week or so. Every summer and throughout the year he would visit his kids or my grandparents. He drove an old Mercury (not completely sure what year or model it was) which was twice the size of a school bus. He wouldn't let me stay there much longer than that for he thought I would get bored which would equal me getting into trouble. Anyways, so we would leave my grandma's house in Folsom, CA and drive to Linda, CA, but this was no ordinary road trip. It was one that was always full of fascination. First the back seat never ended, I mean you could play football in it. The distance between the left door and the right door is wide enough to park a Suburban in it. Another things was my great grandpa always had a Styrofoam cup filled with candy in the cup holder on the door. I think it is still there to this day. He always had an endless supply of Brach's candy at his house, and if he ran out he would go to the store and buy some more. Another thing that came in endless supplies was soda pop (I know, Californians don't refer to soda as soda pop) the bottom shelf in the refrigerator was always filled with soda. You name the flavor he had it. From orange to strawberry to my favorite root beer. Regardless of how much soda I thought I could drink it never was good enough to drink it all. Something else about the refrigerator that most of my cousins didn't know about was all of the chocolate candies that were always hidden in the bottom two drawers of the fridge. Now those were just a few of the perks I had when I visited there house. Another one was he had everything from the old medal push car's to ride to bicycle's that belonged to his kids. Were talking some pretty antique stuff here. There was always some form of history to be learned when you visited his house. Like the pair of track running shoes that hang freely from the rafters of the garage he built. Sounds silly but those track shoes belonged to my grandfather Bill. They are also the same pair of track shoes that helped him set a few records in some track meets. Oh, by the way those records he set at his high school have yet to be beaten. I think one of those records was for the 200 meter hurdles which was removed from the events for track and field. But, the record still stands to this day. Another one is a bicycle that my grandpa one from a radio talk show call in ordeal, which is another story in it's own. He also had walnut tree's all around his house. So there was always an endless supply of walnuts to eat and throw at each other. As long as we didn't get caught it was all good. He also had cat's galore. He probably had at least 50 cats running around his house. On the backside of his property he had this damn fence that kept us kids off of the train tracks. Well since this was our L.O.A. (limit of advance) we would always run to the fence whenever we heard the train barreling down the tracks. As we stood there watching the train fly by the conductor would always give us a nice long tug on the whistle. It also was the place we decided would serve as a trash can for all of our soda bottle's. Whenever I got to go to his house it always gave me this feeling that I was in that movie stand by me. I mean I could really imagine what it was like to grow up back in the 50's and 60's living in this neighborhood. Now, if my memory is correct my great grandfather passed away back in 96'. The last time I went out to the house was probably around 8 yrs ago. My aunt Beverly lives there now and the place still looked the same, well at least from my memories it did. I got to take a walk around the place for the first time without someone in my ear about what I can and can not do. So one of the places I decided to go and see was the train tracks. As a kid it was always off limit's. Well there wasn't really anything interesting to see, it was just some plain old train track's. But the walk to the track's brought back quiet a few memories. I probably stepped on about a thousand soda bottles still intact. Now when was the last time you had a long neck glass bottle of soda. You know with the old pepsi cola label.

I am sure by now you have all figured out that my great grandfather really meant a lot to me. I still wish he was around to this day. I was very fortunate that I got to share 16 wonderful years of my life with him. He always tried to teach me something. From changing a bike tire to how not to take a radiator cap off when it is hot to taking an air filter off of your car and changing it. I always learned something from him. I will always regret not being able to spend that last summer with him. That one last week trip to his house. He has passed but the memories will live with me for a lifetime. Memories that I hope I will be able to share with my kids.

Bath Time

Now one dad's favorite parts of the day is bath time. You see I have this theory that the more kids are in water and are enjoying themselves the less they will be scared of drowning. Now as most of my friends now be fore I joined the Army I was a lifeguard. During my time as a lifeguard I got to soak up the rewards of teaching hundreds of small children how to swim, by far one of the best experiences of my life. For I got a lot out of it. Being the one to teach a kid to swim freestyle or the side stroke, or even teaching a young child how to float on his back. I always thought it was pretty cool. So it started when Aiden was really little. I would go in there and watch him take his baths and splash water on him. At first he was kind of like uh what are you doing? But as he got older he really started to like it. By the time he was walking if you asked him if he wanted to take a bath, he would take off running for the tub and scream until you came in there and turned the water on for him. I was pretty excited to see him excited to take a bath. Well then one day I was drinking water and I decided to spit water on him. Well he laughed so hard that he could barely sit up. You know when they do there belly laugh. It was absolutely hilarious. Well that was the starting point. I would do this to him several times when he was taking his baths and it always got him to laugh. In fact when I was home on leave I did it to him again and he just rolled all over in the tub laughing. It was like it was the funniest thing in the world. Well Jennifer decided the other day that she wanted to save a little time and give both of the kids a bath together. No big deal, Jack is getting to the point to where he can sit up right for a few minutes on his own before falling over. Plus we have this baby chair that attaches to the side of the tub for babies who are to big to be in the baby bath tubs. So aiden and Jack were in the tub, Jennifer was sitting there holding on to Jack. Well Aiden gets this idea to put water in his mouth and to spit it out. Except instead of him spitting it at Jack he spits it all over the floor. Now at first Jennifer wasn't aware of what he was going to do. She just thought he was going to take a drink of water. Well as he spit the water all over the floor little Jack just laughed hysterically. Part of me is glad he didn't spit it all over Jack, for we all now Jennifer would of gotten the bulk of the water. But I sure am glad that Aiden is doing his best to be the man of the house. He really tries to fulfill his daddy's shoe's and this is just a small example of him working hard. I love you AIDEN!

Career's

So every parent has high hopes that their kids will grow up to be a doctor, a lawyer, or even the next President. As a father of two very beautiful boys I to have high hopes for my children. I would love for my kids to pursue a lifetime award fulfilling career that will help them to climb the highest steps of the ladder to success. Sure I would love for one of my boys to be an astronaut and one to be a the lead executive in a fortune 500 company. I think it would be great. Now as we all now my children are still very young. Aiden my oldest is just 2 yrs old and Jack is almost 5 months old. So maybe it is a little early to get them started in the right path of life to reach the goals I would like them to achieve. But then again those are my goals, and it's not about me. It's about me encouraging my children to always to their best in life and to continue to reach there goals regardless of how outrageous or far fetched they may be. As a father it is my job to teach them what they need to know, show them what they need to know, and to give them all of the tools they may need to reach their goals.

So it might be a little to early in there lifes to start planning for what I would like them to do in life. I mean Jack still can't walk so how can he possible be an astronaut at such an early time in his life. Then there is Aiden, who is quite the character. This kid is not even three yrs old and he is already proving that not even the sky is his limit. He has also recently shown to his mother that he has already sparked an interest in what kind of career path he would like to start. I mean this kid is 2 yrs old and he is already training himself in some of the stuff he may endure later on in life in his career. Now, I know your probably thinking: What is Chris talking about? Firefighting. Well, about three weeks ago or so Jennifer was putting Jack to sleep and Aiden was left in the living room unattended to watch his favorite movie CARS. Well I guess Aiden felt that his movie wasn't really entertaining him as much as it should. So like any young boy with an extremely creative imagination decided that he will take it into his own hands to fill the huge gap of entertainment that he oh so deserved. I mean it is hard being a cute little 2 yr old boy. Specially when he has to compete with a 4 month old baby. Now I don't want you to get the impression that my wife neglects my kids, for it is so not true. In fact a really look up to my wife. Raising two very little children while your husband is deployed to Iraq. So I give her all of the props in the world. Now back to the story. Now both of my children are very cute and adorable. So as Aiden was sitting their pondering on what could he possibly do to fulfill his boredom. So as he sat there, this great idea came to his head. Where he got this idea, I have no clue.

For those of you who have been to my house you all now that we have this fairly nice floor lamp right behind our humongous couch. Figured it out yet? So, Aiden decides that he is going to climb onto the top of the back of the couch and hold on to the floor lamp and slide down the lamp post kind of like how the firefighter do it. As he descended the two foot slide tot he ground guess who walks around the corner. Mom! that's right Mom! Of course the first thing mom asks is, What are you doing?

Now I really doubt Aiden has a full grasp on what could of happened to him, or he wouldn't of done it. Yeah, right, Chris. That never stopped me from doing the things I did in life ( i.e. BB gun wars) Of course Aiden just gave his mother that cute adorable smile he gives to get him out of trouble. Now we don't know exactly for sure what he was doing. For all we know he was just playing with the post. Yeah, right. You see Jennifer didn't really catch him in the act of sliding down the pole, but we can only assume what his little mind was upto. I will admit to this day I still think it's funny. On the other hand maybe he wasn't trying to slide down the pole like a firefighter, maybe he was seeing what it was like to be a stunt man (oh, for Jennifer's sanity I hope that was not his intent), or maybe he was trying to climb up the pole like a mountain climber. There are a lot of possibilities on what he really was doing and we may never know the whole truth. I hope you guys like my version of the story a little better than Jenn's.

Why!

Why! Now it's a great word, but can also be one of the most annoying thing you can hear from someone. Specially when your giving a block of instruction or talking to big crowd. Now this post is not about either of those. It is more about WHY, I haven't posted in such a long time. So here it is. As you may know I am currently serving in Iraq. Now AAFES in all of it's great wisdom has come up with this wonderful plan to install wireless internet throughout the base so you can check your email and chat with loved ones in the comfort of your room. Well when we first got here the wireless service worked maybe 40% of the time. So the guys I work with and I decided to go out and buy a satellite internet system. Trust me it was well worth it. Now I have internet service pretty much whenever I need it. The only problem is we bought the system through a company in Poland. We get our satellite signal from somewhere in Greece. Pretty easy, right. Not really. Now 99% of the web pages I go to everything is broad casted in english. Well for some reason google recognizes my info as coming from Greece, so it has decided on its own accord to view my blog in Greek. Which is kind of neat, but by all means I am not bilingual at all. So for in order for me to sign in and add posts to my account is equivalent to an archaeologist trying to read some hieroglyphics. So after wasting about an hour of time I will finally get my blog to be shown in english. Now I know a lot of you are thinking of saying just save it in your favorites or just bookmark it when you get to it in english. Well I have done that, and it doesn't work. Oh, well.

So since I am on the WHY thing. Why is it when I am in the desert, where it hits a scorching 140 degree's in the hottest part of the day in summertime can snow for 3 hours in the winter. Now I wish I had snow right now since it's about 130 degrees today. But, no kidding I think it was Jan 16th of this year I woke up around 0600 hrs to go outside and see this white substance coming down from the sky. At first I was like What is that. Then it dawned on me that it is snow. So I guess I can say that I have officially thrown a snowball in the middle of Baghdad, Iraq. Pretty cool. Well I hope you guys enjoyed. Until next time.

Boys and our Toys!

Well, while I was on R&R from Iraq the Frey's and I decided to take the kids to the water slide park in Auburn, AL. For 18 dollars it was worth the few hours in the sun to rekindle my relationship with Aiden. Now for those of you who may not know Aiden is probably one of the few 2 yr olds that don't understand that he should have at least a little bit of fear for the water. Well he doesn't. If you've read me previous post about lightning McQueen from his favorite Disney movie Cars.

So there we are at the water park. me, him, and Lightning. The three of us were actually having a great time running around the little kids pool that was maybe 24 inches deep in the deepest part. 0Well dad just wasn't enjoying himself as much as he could of, so I get this great idea to take Aiden to the wave pool. Mainly because it was deeper and the waves were turned off. So I thought it was relatively safe. Aiden was having fun and so was I. It was really cool to watch him play in the water. Plus it gave me a chance to hold him in my arms for a little while. Which was one of the things I miss being able to do while I am over here in Iraq.
So as we started to play Aiden made it perfectly clear on several occassions that he didn't want me to hold him regardless of how deep the water is. So I would let him push off of me (don't worry ladies he never went out of arms reach of me and his head stayed above water the whole time) then I would put my hands in his arm pits while he thought he was floating on top of the water. It was really cool to see the look on his face and the way he would react in the water. Well then it started, that's right the waves. So I decided to start making my way back to the shallow end so that way I wouldn't lose my balance. Well as soon as I got more than ten feet away he would scream no Maddie. So I had to take him back over by Maddie mainly to keep him happy. The thing is he never really played with her, I think he was more jealous that Maddie was in the waves and he wasn't. No biggie, I was more there for him than I was for me. So after awhile we started to make our way back over to the shallow end when it happened (I think I was in a little more than waste deep water on me) he dropped Lightning McQueen. Now before I left that morning Jennifer made it perfectly clear that the world would stop turning if anything happened to Lightning McQueen. So what does Aiden do? He let's go of me to dive under water and get his car. Sure enough he did retrieve it (I already for see the gripes that's going to bring). I was proud of my son's accomplishment of being able to scuba dive in 4 feet of water with no fear, but I was more concerned than anything.

Now I always try to tie the stories of my son in with an experience of my own. Now I to know what it is like when you have a love for a certain toy. Aiden favorite toy as we all know is Lightning McQueen. Mine, well it was the deep sea diving G.I. Joe, well now from what I was told the story goes something like this. I was about 3 yrs old and I was at my grand parents house sitting out back next to the pool. Well of course my G.I. Joe was suppose to be able to go deep sea diving so I was playing with him in the spa that connected to the pool. Now my mom told me that I couldn't go swimming on this particular day. So I was sitting there playing with deep sea diving G.I. Joe when he fell out of my hand. Well he was able to go to the bottom with no problems. So I took it upon myself to go and get him. Well getting to the bottom of the spa to retrieve me favorite toy was the easy part. Getting back, well that I didn't really think to far ahead. So I get my G.I. Joe, then it dawns on me that I can't get back to the top of the pool. So I just sat there until my mom grabbed me. I might of been under water for about 15 seconds. My mom was well you guessed rather mad that I did what I did. You would of thought I would of been crying and trying to cuddle with my mom after such a traumatizing event in my life, oh no instead I just sat there with a pissed off look on my face for getting my hair wet, yes I actually had hair when I was younger. In fact I had hair until after my third year in the Army, but that is another story that I will save for a different time in my life.

CARS

Thank God Aiden doesn't know how to read just yet. For I am sure this post will really make him upset with me. All of us at one time or another had a favorite movie to watch, heck mine is still a Christmas Story. But honestly (ssssshhhhhhhh! don't tell Jennifer about this) that movie is getting rather old and boring. I really think someone in Hollywood needs to make a newer version of it. I won't go into detail on what I would do to make it more modern. Anyways, my son Aiden loves Cars, and everything Cars related. And I mean everything. He wakes up in the morning to watch Cars. His day will not go the right way if it doesn't start out with Cars. He has like 10 Lightning McQueen Cars. When he goes to bed at night he has to have his ightning car, or the bed bugs will definitely bite. He sleeps peacefully all night long with a death grip on his lightning McQueen car. He wakes up with his lightning McQueen car still in his hand. He takes baths with his Lightning McQueen. Eats, shops, and well you name it Lightning McQueen is locked in to his kung fu grip. This kid will stop the earth from turning if his lightning came up missing. It is rather cute and funny, but on the other hand if I have to watch Cars one more time I am going to go crazy. We went to Kmart today to buy some pool care products and a Lightning McQueen power wheel. Now I am not going to go into a great deal of the fiasco we went through to get it off of lay away but...... I will say this. I know why Kmart is going out of business! So we walk by the power wheels and unbeknown to us on an end cap there is the Lightning Mcqueen power wheel we wanted to get him. I didn't even see it, but Aiden sure did. This kid saw this from 50 feet away and started to scream lightning! Lightning! I was like oh great here it starts. So we go to lay away to pick up his surprise gift. The whole time he is screaming Lightning McQueen. So I decided to take Aiden for a walk to the front of Kmart to get another cart. Big mistake. I purposely detoured away from the toy section just to avoid his obsession (mainly because dad will give in and get it for him). So I take the safe route. You know the one that takes you right through the bedding and bathing stuff. Well what do you know there it is the Lightning McQueen shower curtain with the Lightning shower curtain hooks of lightning Mcqueen. I will admit they were pretty cute. Believe it or not I was able to presuade myself into telling my son No!

So we get the cart and make it back to mommy. Where she was anxiously waiting our arrival. So I manage to get the power wheel in the cart with out Aiden getting to mad at me. So as we tried to walk out of the store with his toy, Aiden is walking sideways down the isle with his arms rasied saying my ightning my ightning. I managed to make it to the car where I miraculously got him in the car with out having a complete fit. So I tried to put his power wheel in the back of the explorer, but it was way to big to fit in there. So I had to tie this thing down to the top off the car. Amazingly it made it home in one piece. Even better by the time we got home Aiden had forgotten all about the thing. So we put him down for a nap so mommy and daddy could put his car together. Now he hasn't seen it yet. In fact the plan is to give it to him first thing tomorrow morning. If I remember I will try to post some pics of him on it in the next day or two. Well hopefully he will be surprised to see it. That's all folks. Ka chow!