Word to your Mom, I Came to Drop Bombs...

Flea bombs, that is.

Yeah, we decided that in our infinite free time, we should have to deal with an flea infestation. At first, we were just going to ignore the many flea bites that itched like Hades on my ankles, but my wife took off Alex's shirt yesterday to find flea bites all over his back, and decided that the air raid would have to happen yesterday. So while I was at work, the three foggers filled the air with noxious death fumes, and we spent all night last night wiping down furniture, rewashing all the dishes, rewashing clothes, deep steam cleaning all the carpets... Basically making sure the house was completely dead flea + noxious residue free. I'm just finishing the rest of the cleaning and washing up today, and we should be completely done with it by tonight. God, I hate fleas. We killed a bunch of other bugs too.

But that was just yesterday. Sometime earlier this week, I forget when, because when you have babies, time is a relative concept... I got the itch again to venture into something completely stupid and time consuming, and would plunge me into further debt. I flirted with the idea to start up my videography again, going into it completely as a full time venture. I wouldn't do it with my own money this time, because that proved to be pretty dumb ultimately. No, I would apply for a loan by the government for small businesses, and then go all out. Get furniture, new hardware, a second camera, and advertise like a mother. Of course, I haven't taken a step further than the initial thought, but the seed is planted. I have to still figure out a good way to still make profit from the business, but be appealing to people out there. In my small community whereby the video market is already saturated with other videographers and companies. I dunno, it's just something that I'm batting around. I'm just getting wary of my job. While I beep thousands of merchandise every week (8000 or so, dudes.), I think about my degree and the amount of time and money that I've put into higher education and wonder what I'm doing auditing. I don't mind auditing, but it's not my passion.

Alex had a grand old time today when he found the tissue paper box. He was halfway through the box before I realized he was dispensing them at light speed. Yes, I was busy taking crack cocaine while this was all going on, but I only shoot it in between my toes so that other parents can't see the marks and judge me. But my little toe is totally impotent now. Anyway, I just let him play with the tissue paper and toss it all around like some twisted prom queen. I know it really makes no sense, but if you saw his face you'd get it.

Well, another load in the laundry. Stupid fleas.

A Ray of Joy in an Otherwise Crap Day

One of my tricks to making Alex laugh or cheer up is to hold him tight to me, and then jump in the air while panting, "Jump!" under my not-so-fit breath. Alex always gets a giggle from that, and he much prefers that then me actually throwing him in the air. Without any human contact, he just doesn't like to be flung around. I don't blame him though, there's a strong chance he got that from me.

But anyway, I grabbed him tonight and was jumping around, and my wife was holding Zoe, facing out close to me. I heard Zoe let out a coo, so I decided that it was a minigame to be won. I have to make this girl laugh! So I jumped around some more, and she was making more coos in between her hiccups. Like a possessed needy child, I just jumped around frantically, coaxing a chuckle or two out of Zoe.

And so my wife heard Zoe laugh for the first time! It's such a great face - the often neutral or frowny features turn upward, and the usually chubby cheeks that's suitable for kissing and jiggles moved to enhance that smile. And her eyes just twinkle with joy. And her laugh is just so infectious. Her little chuckle sent me and my wife into rolls of laughter, because it was just so adorable.

At the end of it, I was completely out of breath and close to death, and Alex was slightly brain damaged because I had been jumping with him the whole time. At some point he probably stopped thinking it was fun, but I was too busy noticing Zoe's little laugh to register. I even tried to get it on tape, and if I find a usuable non-jumping segment, I'll post it. It ain't easy jumping, holding a 25 pound little boy in one arm, and holding a 3 pound video camera in the other, while trying to focus in on a bubbly daughter.

I also think it's hilarious that my wife's hand is still frozen. I handed her a piece of paper to look at while she was in bed a while ago, then I took a shower, came out, and she was still holding the paper, but she's fast asleep. It's been five minutes now and her hand is still gripping an imaginary piece of paper that I had extracted from her pinch since. I should go find a ketchup covered weiner or something and put it in her sleepy grasp, then yell out loud, "Oh my God! You broke it!"

Cause that won't be mean.

Post Election Blues

I suppose it's no secret who we had hoped to have won the election. Even early this morning, it was still in the air - Bush was still leading in Electoral Votes by 2 votes, and Ohio was still up for grabs. But by the time I had gotten in the car, the report had come in that Kerry had called Bush in the White House and conceded. I was depressed for the whole day.

There was a man on the news, and his soundclip was, "I'm embarassed to be an American. And I'm depressed." Which pretty much summed up our feeling about the election results. Somehow, after all that Anti-Bush campaigning, and the news that Iraq did after all, no weapons of Mass Destruction, and an unapologetic president who still maintains that Iraq, not North Korea or Pakistan, is a country that needed a takedown - the man still retains in power, in office.

My wife was pretty emotional as well today. She watched the Concession speech by Kerry and cried. I'm kinda there with here, because it didn't just feel like our candidate just lost. It felt like we all lost, and took a few steps backwards. I'm not even certain if Kerry was the right man for the job, but it certainly feels like the wrong man's leading this country for the next four years.

Just a note, I'll reserve the right to remove any comments.

Ketchup!

Since I haven't posted for about a week, thought I should do some catching up. For those of you keeping notes at home, I suppose.

Her First Laugh

So on Saturday, Brendon and Maralise came over to hang out, and Maralise is looking pregnant and Brendon is looking pretty sexy in his Carhartt pants. We gave them a bunch of clothes that Alex outgrew, and the night was going on pretty normally, but when my wife and stepdaughter was in the garage getting more clothes, Zoe started laughing. A cute little chuckle the lasted for about a minute, in short little spurts. I don't know what she was laughing at at first - it could either be Alex playing with his rattle, or Maralise talking or laughing about something. But I yelled for my wife, and yelled, and yelled. But she was done laughing about it when she resurfaced. But it was just the cutest little laugh. Alex's first laugh was when Maralise was over too. Something in her voice, I suppose!

She's also smiling a lot more now, if you're directly in front of her talking to her or doing some kind of baby talk. She's got such a cute little smile - sorta makes up for all those cranky expressions for the past two months.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Yes, I caved and bought the game, putting most of it on my credit card. It was on sale at work, so I had to get it. Impressions of it? Going from mixed to liking it a lot. Vice City's still got the better soundtrack and Ray Liota, but the complexity of San Andreas is nothing to discount. This should keep me super busy for the next six months...

Well, there's a video game calling for me. San Andreas - represent, baby!

Happy Halloween!



Click to see more of our Halloween Slideshow Extravaganza!

Even though this is technically Alex's second Halloween, it's pretty much his first real Halloween because he didn't really dress up last year. I myself have never done the Halloween thing, what with me being from another country and all that, so it was kinda fun doing Trick or Treatin' with the babies, even though we did go to the mall for the loot, and the babies can't actually say the words, "Trick or Treat."

That's Alex as a Orange Vicious Tiger, (which will be renamed Zoe's Cuddly Kitty Cat for next year), and Zoe as a disgruntled Easter Bunny. My wife and I didn't dress up, or perhaps we were just going as Frazzled Parents of Babies. JL dressed up in the same outfit that she's worn for the past 3 years, some kind of red dress with white padding thingy that makes her look like either a Mormon or a Hostess at the Country Buffet. Even she doesn't know what she's supposed to be.

We were bad, we went to the mall instead of going door to door. The main reasons being that since they were so little, the harsh cold weather would've been too much for them to bear, and also they're really too young to ask for anything, which would mean I would have to knock on the door and ask myself, which seems like some half-baked plan to use my kids to get candy for myself. Of course, since most of the candy Alex got were hard candy or huge chunks of candy, he'll probably not be able to eat the majority of them anyway.

The mall experience was kinda interesting - definitely busier than I'd ever expected it to be. It was up there with Christmas, if not worse, because you've got a bunch of people packed into a mall, and half the people are kids who are in costumes, and the other half are adults trying to keep those kids in order. There was an unofficial imaginary line around the inside perimeter of the mall, whereby people would just line up and go store to store. A lot of it was really anti-climatic, because you'd wait in line for minutes and when you got to the lucky clerk who was handing out candy, she's simply smile at Alex and give him a piece of candy, two if he's lucky. It was not the handful that you'd hope for.

Of course, Alex being little, didn't understand the concept of Strangers putting things in his little orange container. He did explore in there and take out pieces of candy to place in his mouth, before I panicked each time and took it away from him. But he did get some pieces of chocolate that I had bitten off for him, so his sugar intake was relatively good for someone his age. It was enough to make him talk at the top of his voice all the way home, that's for sure. He would just go, "DAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH! DAAAAAHHHHHHH!" at the top of his lungs, right behind my seat.

Interesting things to note about today's experience - Waldenbooks didn't hand out candy, they handed out Shrek bookmarks. Gee thanks, people. Our boy's picture books are maybe six pages long, but you never know. He might lose his place. Old Navy handed out Halloween stickers. But Mastercuts topped it all by giving out Shampoo samples. Oh my freakin' god, dude. Trust some poor kid to cut his candy in the dark and end up with a frothin' suprise. I had to take it away from Alex too because he was starting to nibble on it. The other notable thing was that when we were leaving the mall, we saw a group of people picketing the intersection by the mall. No, not for the upcoming elections.

Guess...




These were Christians. They were picketing Halloween. There was another sign out there that said something like "Repent your sins. Jesus loves you." My and my wife were completely flabbergasted. I mean, I understand that they can have their harvest festivals and boycott Halloween, but really, to protest a tradition that's not governmentally mandated or have any religious affliations; and that have to do more about dressing up and eating too much candy than worshipping the occult and having a beer with Satan - it's really gone too far. The guy in the picture is actually shouting his discontent to traffic.

This crazy ass world.

But anyway, it was a good Halloween for our babies. They seem to have had fun, even if it was more for Mommy and Daddy!