part one

Ohhhkayy!

Here we go people. Better go to the restroom, grab yourself a beveridge and come on back.

It’s been a long time, and for good reason, things have been super busy on our front. That and I have recently developed cubital tunnel syndrome and it’s painful to type on some nights when I do feel like blogging.

I have been pretty limited with my left arm since I did all of that landscaping and such. Speaking of landscaping the transplants on the side fence are starting to come up and they look great!





We have also started the backyard garden.


it could use some weeding out though

Some herbs are planted and things are looking good. we have left space available for students to plant some things come the fall.

The gravel pit is good to go and the only thing that’s left is the side yard that needs to clean up a little, well, a lot. We eventually want to move our storage shed over there. So, getting back to a few things that I had said I would follow up on that I wrote about, oh, 4 months ago. # 1 is Don’t go to home depot in the middle of the day on a weekday. It sucks. Nobody is there to help you. And they take this time to block off aisles and restock lumber. I was over there getting lumber for the gravel pit and had to wait forever! Best time to go is at night or in the morning.

Speaking of gravel pit. That brings us to #2. Let’s talk about cheap black plastic edging. You see this stuff all over. Most of the time it is horribly installed. That’s because it takes a lot of work to install it right. Nobody has the patience to do it right so you see a lot bad uses!

I can’t stand the stuff. Not that there’s anything wrong with it. It’s just that I can’t stand it. My father in law suggested I use it for the gravel pit, and I’m like, NO WAY! I have my code of aesthetics. So I started really thinking about how I was going to border it off. It’s a tough one. On the one hand it has to do the job of keeping the gravel out of the yard but on the other, it has to be safe for kids, and on the other hand, it has to look good. What’s that old saying??? Cost, time, quality. Pick two. Yes they had that on a sign somewhere where I used to work.

Speaking of work, I quit my job this week, but where was I? oh yes, gravel pit edging. So I wanted to use wood for the gravel edging but wood on the ground would attract termites, and treated wood puts off chemicals that are bad for kids. So then I thought copper metal, all big red sun style. Hello! That’s gonna hurt, and its expensive. Ok what about PVC! Round and safe, and ….ugly! I was running out of time, and I went to the depot to look at my options. Well, I see this “industrial strength” plastic edging for 20 bucks. 20 bucks is all it’s going to cost me to do the project. I finally succumbed. Just like I succumbed to screwing corner gaurds into my 900 dollar coffee table. remember that whole bit! Anyway It was just the best option. It’s safe for the kids, the house, and the pocketbook. But it was not easy to install. Me and my dad had a time of it.



Eventually I ripped two of the sections out. They just didn’t look good and I didn’t need them really. So in the pit, two sides are blocked with the edging, one side is the concrete patio, and then I went and bought some cedar to screw into the bottom of the fence on the side opposite the patio. Not bad. I’m happy with it. Anybody want 10 bucks worth of edging? Ok, so anyway, getting back to the yard.





We have a new “used” swing set in the back and will be selling our turtle sandbox. It’s not Montessori. Too cutesy.
Theresa has this grand idea for a sand and water table made out of PVC pipe. We’ll see. you see that ugly green box in the photo of the turtle sandbox? thats for the cable tv people. why they pick that color green? i have no idea, cuss it doesnt match grass or anything. i wanted to stain it the same color as the fence, but it wouldnt take the stain. so im going to buy a pho-rock! thats right. a fake rock to go over it. that will be later. maybe for christmas.



Oh yeah, my arm.
I’m supposed to not do anything with it, but it’s like, “hello! I have a baby!” I try to use my right arm only but life gets in the way. Enough about me, lets get to akello, oh wait, my job, ummm that can wait actually.

Akello was sick a while back with a Urinary tract infection. UTI for those in the biz. Very rare. It was nice to know that there was nothing that we could have done about it. He turned around once he got put on the anti-biotics. It was tough to give him his medicine though. For one, he is very good at spitting stuff out of his mouth, on top of that, he’s a determined little fella, and it’s hard to stick a syringe down his mouth twice a day for a week or so. He still needs to undergo a test or eight to see if he’s clear to suit up.

He is crawling, standing up, and eating table food. He is so over baby food. We try to feed him some and he just looks at us, and then at our plates. So then we put some baby food on our plates the next day. Nope, there’s no tricking him. He loves chicken and pasta so far. Babies are great. they know what they like, and what they don’t like. Its easier figuring out what to do with akello than it is with some of my friends. “I dunno, what do you want to do?”

He just loves to move, loves to stand, but sometimes freaks out cuss he doesn’t know how to sit back down. He has gotten to the point of crawling to different rooms in the house. His favorite spot in the whole house is the stereo shelf in our bedroom. The shelf is low enough for him to pull himself up on, and he just loves to turn the stereo on and press the buttons. Then he just pulls all the cd’s off the shelf one by one as if to say, “Crap, crap, crap, crap disguised as something good, crap,” he loves the stereo b/c he can easily and randomly push buttons and something always happens. He will turn on the radio, then switch to tape, then turn on the cd. Back and forth for minutes on end. Then he will open the CD door and start spinning the cd back and forth like a little DJ scratching a record.

It was mother’s day and he was at his usual spot playing with the stereo, but hadn’t turned it on yet. I had given Theresa her mother’s day card and she was reading it and afterwards I said, “But that’s not all!” and proceeded to pull her gift out from under my pillow. At the same time, music started to play. Akello had turned on the CD player and grinned! It was hilarious! Our little DJ was right on que!

We have baby proofed the bedroom now. It was on the backburner since he wasn’t moving around, but now its like watch out! We picked up this adhesive backed soft molding at babys r us. Its awesome. It has a super strong grip. It has performed very well as compared to others that I have tried out. 5 stars! We applied it to the stereo shelf and the footboard of the bed.

Mothers day was great, even though I had to work. We started the day with a card that I made theresa that had a picture of akello and mama on day one, akello que'd the music and I gave her a gift, Angelique Kidjo’s latest CD. Then we went to have breakfast at Curras, one of our favorite Sunday hang outs back when we were dating and I lived in the 04. This was the first time that I had been to a restaurant with akello. I was a little nervous. Thinking that we would need a lot of table space to keep things out of akellos reach.







We had a great time . we hadn’t been in so long that we forgot how things tasted. So it was a nice refresher. Akello ate some black beans off my plate. He was so funny eating them up. He’s funny in general. So there was a table in our vicinity that had a mom, two sisters, and a baby. The baby was making eyes at akello and we were smiling at the table and admiring their baby. After they had eaten and were getting up to leave they came over to say hi and ask the usual baby icebreaker questions. How old is your baby? I started thinking about how Theresa had said that people where all of the sudden a lot nicer to her once she was showing her pregnancy and how that’s still the case when she carries akello around. And here we were. All strangers saying hi, brought together in the middle of a resturaunt by a couple of babies. I swear, if everyone had a 8 month old at home, there would be no war.

We then met up with The Romeros at Ruta Maya for Joe Mcdermonts CD Release party. Hes a childrens music artist, so there are all these kids grooving to some quirky silly guy on stage.






It was a fun time, I scooted off to work from there. Then after work we went to town lake for a walk. We walked for a good while.






Akello digs the walks. And then we had take out from Whataburger for dinner. What a treat! A great first mothers day.

well, i thought i could tackle it all, but it looks like part two will have to wait till tommorow. wait till you hear about my job drama!!