The Road our Culture is Paving

6 Weeks

Today Jake is 6 weeks old. For me this means no more being lazy. It's time to start exercising, cooking and cleaning again. I think I am finally learning how to handle two kids at home but I'm still trying to figure out how to handle them when we are not at home.   ( Don't even get me started on today's outing.) Jake is doing very well. He can hold his head up like a champ and he is starting to smile as you can see from the picture below.

My cute little ball of chub in his Sunday Best.

Lily is turning into a 2 year old more and more each day. She will be turning two in less than two weeks. She is extremely independant and loves to get out and see other people. Everywehre we go she runs up to people  and says "Hi. How are you?" If it is an older person then she will say "Hi Grandma/Grandpa." She is good at letting me know if I am driving too slow and she gets mad if I sing along to the radio. She is so much fun and full of life and we just love her so much.

Just Some Pictures

                                                            My two little cuties
                                                            I love his dimple
                                        I also love the big chunk of hair he has on top of his head. He doesn't have much anywhere else.

                                                  Enjoying a little tummy time.
                                                        Who needs a double stroller?

Britain has talent, too?

If you've never heard of Susan Boyle or Paul Potts, you should watch these videos:

Susan Boyle (click link)

Paul Potts:

The Ant and the Grasshopper, a political tale:

I found this little gem on Race42012 (formerly 08), a political blog I've been following for over a year now. They discuss ad nauseum the struggles and victories of the Republican party. I highly recommend it. Here's the story and link:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. So far, so good, eh?

The shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like him, are cold and starving.

NBC, PBS, ABC, CBS and CNN show up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper, with cuts to a video of the ant in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food. America and the world is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can it be that, in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Then a representative of the NAAGB (National Association of Green Bugs) shows up on Nightline and charges the ant with “green bias”, and makes the case that the grasshopper is the victim of 30 million years of greenism.

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when he sings “It’s Not Easy Being Green.” President Obama make a special guest appearance on the CBS Evening News to tell a concerned Katie Couric that they will do everything they can for the grasshopper who has been denied the prosperity he deserves by those who benefited unfairly during the Bush summers, or as Obama refers to it, the “Fahrenheit ‘08″.

Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi exclaim in an interview with Chris Matthews that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and they call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his “fair share.”

Finally, the EEOC drafts the “Economic Equity and Anti-Greenism Act”. Retroactive to the beginning of the summer, the ant was fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.  The ant moves to Dubai and starts a successful agribiz company. 

MSNBC later shows the now fat grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he’s in, which just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around him since he doesn’t know how to maintain it.  Inadequate government funding is blamed, Bill Clinton is appointed to head a commission of enquiry that will cost $25,000,000.

The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose, the New York Times blames it on the obvious failure of the previous Republican led Congress to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity. The abandoned house is taken over by a gang of immigrant spiders, praised by the government for enriching America’s multicultural diversity, who promptly set up a marijuana grow op and terrorize the community. 

My Little Chunk

Today Jake had his 4 week check-up and he is a big boy. He weighs 10lbs. 12oz. and is 21 1/2 in. That puts him in the 75% for weight and 50% for height. He is such a sweet little (and by little I mean big) guy and we just love him so much.

 The picture below is pretty much what he looks like if  i'm not holding him. Poor little guy. He can be a little demanding at times. 
My two little girls.
I don't know why this picture is sideways but oh well. I couldn't get a very good picture because Lily wouldn't really smile and Jake was hungry so he kept looking twoards Lily with an open mouth hoping she would supply him with something. I just had to get a picture of him in this girly outfit. Yesterday we had a wonderful Easter dinner at  some friends house and Jake had a blow-out so my friend let me borrow one of her daughters old outfits.(Yes it is a size 3 mo. and it fit great) Lily is also wearing one of her daughters nightgowns because when she was giving her daughter a bath, Lily stripped down and jumped in the tub too. Lily loves this little guy. Whenever she gets hurt she goes to him now. Suddenly my kisses don't work anymore so she goes to him and shoves her "owie" in his face and makes him kiss it better. This is very difficult when he is sleeping because I don't want her to wake him up but she won't stop crying till she gets a Jake kiss. 

Managing with two

I was so sad  to see my family go. It was so fun and very helpful to have them here.  Having two children has been a bit overwhelming for me but I think I am finally getting the hang of it a little bit. I have had to learn to let some of the less important things go and just take care of my kids at this point. Some day I will learn how to balance it all out and actually take care of my house and other things as well as the kids. Lily has sensed that I need a little help and has taken it apon herself to take care of things such as pouring her own bowl of cereal (above picture). She also has been changing her own diaper. As soon as she wets her diaper, she takes it off and puts a new one on. I don't know why she can't just use the toilet. We are still working on that one. (Sigh) She has also taken charge of her own discipline. Whenever she hits me or pulls my hair, she goes and sits in the time-out corner, cries for a minute, then comes and says sorry and gives me a kiss. This usually happens while I am feeding Jake. She loves Jake and attacks him with kisses constantly.

While Jacobs parents were here visiting, we made molds of the kids hands and feet. Suprizingly both kids were very cooprative.
When my mom was here, she found a bird building a nest in the bush right outside the window. Lily loves to sit and watch it. We cant wait till its eggs hatch and we can see the babies. The hard part is keeping Lily from knocking on the window and scaring the bird away.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com