Saturday, January 24, 2004

Today's been a lazy sorta day, but the perfect day off if you ask me. The little guy decided to let me sleep in till ten, and when I walked into the room this morning a cheery little boy looked at me and gave me the sweetest little grin.

We're having a lazy kinda day, and I've confined him to his crib currently because typing with one hand is near impossible to get any kind of momentum going. Besides, since he's letting out an occasional yelp once in a while, I'll be taking typing breaks to check on him to make sure he hasn't, for example, swallowed his foot.

This week has been a little trying on all of us, what with the husband of a friend passing away, and my sister-in-law being in the hospital. Turned out she has fibrous muscular dysplasia, which to my limited knowledge should be treatable because she's getting out of the hospital today. As for our friend whose husband just passed, I'll be busy for the next few nights putting together a photo montage for them. I've met him only a few times, and he does seem to be a geniunely nice guy. Also this week, we've been on such a tight budget because of the stupid hospital bill and insurance bills that we've been raiding our backstock of food.

Well, yesterday my wife and I went on a date, because our friend Karen volunteered to watch Alex for the afternoon, which was superb for us. So Karen was great enough to get the little guy, and our original plan to go to Lynden and tool around, point at the many churches, marvel at their lack of MTV and dance in the streets was thwarted by the rainfall. So we just went around and spent more money on stuff. Flannel sheets (we only had one set) and blank DVDs to keep myself busy. Furthermore, we had the brilliant opportunity to see a movie together, which is something my wife hadn't done for a while. I myself have seen a few with the guys, but we chose "Big Fish" to be our movie.

It was a good movie, had me tearing up toward the end so much that I couldn't see properly for about 10 minutes after the movie. We really did enjoy the movie, and I think both Albert Finney and Ewan McGregor as wonderful actors, partially because both of them look a lot alike and also bring a lot to the character of Edward Bloom. Another good flick I watched in the last week, suprisingly for me even, was "Open Range." Now for a while now, Kevin Costner has fostered the reputation for being a bit of a diva, but I really did enjoy the storytelling in the movie. Not a lot of actual violence (just the aftermaths of this violence that motivates the story forward) until the end of the movie, and even then it wasn't overdone.

Back to the subject of babies, I've been kicking around an idea to write a movie with my babies in it. I have a rough inkling to the outline of the plot, and it's probably not a tremendously original idea, but I think it should be fine. Considering how they'll probably not pass off as anyone else's baby but mine, I'm completely okay with that. Besides, I don't think I'll all that comfortable handing my baby around anyhow. But the idea would be that I would be able to be creative and tell a story, and at the same time I'm virtually watching my kid anyway, so no harm is done. Budgetwise should be simple, since the story will be likely a comedy or drama of some sort, with seemingly normal locales and situations. Hell, if nobody watches it or finds it interesting, it will still be a good thing to catch on tape.

I love the way he smells after a bath. Clean baby!

Oh yeah, one thing I wanted to add but it doesn't fit anywhere in the post -- when we drove home from Karen's house in Lynden, Alex was crying and screaming all the way home. That was tough...

Tuesday, January 20, 2004

I took the day off today and the three of us - my wife, my son and I - drove down to Everett to see my wife's sister. Well, turned out she didn't exactly have a stroke or heart attack, but what happened to my limited knowledge is that there was a tear in her Carotid Artery, which may have been caused by her high blood pressure. This caused her to be confused often - she literally did not recognize my father-in-law and was prone to fits of anger, and even called my baby Nicky a few times. She also suffered a pretty severe seizure. Her eyesight is also hopefully, just temporarily limited, and she's just overly exhausted. Currently she's still undergoing a bunch of tests, and surgery will probably be in place for her, but boy. What a scary thing to go through.

We're feeling a little better about the whole situation overall, having seen her and such. Driving down to Everett wasn't too bad, but parking at Harborview is not recommended for people with limited patience like myself.

Someone at work just lost her husband day before yesterday, and it's hit us a little weird. A huge part of it is because that person is one of the nicest people around. Another part of it is that one of the first weddings that I did was for her daughter and son-in-law, and I actually have met and talked to this man - a really nice and personable fella who loves the people around him. These few days I've just been thinking about the footage that I have of him, and just thinking about the last thing my wife and I saw them together at the mall.

Mortality really has been on our minds this week.

But on the bright side, my wife and I had fun in the car ride back and forth from Everett.

Twin!

Sunday, January 18, 2004

So this weekend was a rather eventful one in some ways.

My wife's sister essentially had a stroke or a mild heart attack - it's not quite decided which one, but one thing's for sure is that her high blood pressure was so severe that it impaired her vision and actually gave her a strong enough headache to get her admitted into the hospital. She's still under watch because they've given her various cocktails of medicines but the blood pressure isn't going down as it should be. So on Saturday, we drove down to Everett but the information was incorrect, so we ended up just eating at Burger King and then driving home because we didn't know that she was still at the hospital. We're pretty sure that she's going to be ok, but it's still a hard one for my wife.

Today is sorta exciting as well, things have finally petered down to one kid. My wife's older daughter and her husband wanted to watch Lord of the Rings, so we watched their two year old, and their 9 month old boy tonight. Alex finally fell asleep at around eight and Joseph soon after, but boy, having two babies and one toddler in the house was certainly interesting. It's almost as if one has to shut down the other things in their life to focus on the children. Cleaning the kitchen afterward seemed almost theraputic and relaxing. Here was one thing that was going to be predictable and easy to handle. They're fun though, Jane was really cute when she was banging on the electronic keyboard and singing in her own language. That kind of stuff made it worthwhile.

Also, yesterday was, for some reason, call our house day. Everyone called. It seemed like one after another, all about random things. People who don't usually call us called.

On a personal and rather boring front, I finally figured out how to copy a DVD! Took me forever and a few wasted blank discs, but now I can finally feel somewhat okay about Blockbuster overcharging me for the rental and the stupid late fees. I'll show you, coporate whores! I also spent a significant amount of time playing Vice City and Medal of Honor - so much that I don't see cars on the road anymore, just vehicles that I can steal and jump over ridiculous ramps. Medal of Honor crept into my head and I was dreaming that I was in the war, and there were Nazis on a train that I had stowed away on. Of course, if that had happened for real I couldn't pass for anything.

Well, that was the weekend. A crazy one.

Oh, a new game too. Alex started doing this thing with me whereby he'll put his hand in my mouth, and when I chew on it he'll giggle and continue to explore my piehole with gusto. It does hurt occasionally when he decides to make a fist inside my mouth or grab my tongue, but hey, that's the goodness that is fatherhood.