There are seven children in our house under the age of six.  Yes, that’s right SEVEN kids all aged six years old or younger!  Thankfully, with four adults it is still under the 2-1 ratio….barely.  This weekend brought a treat for our family.  We had family come to visit!  My little sister Kelsey brought her four kids (in her defense, she had twins) and our Mother out for a weekend visit.  Aiden and Paige were so excited that they stayed up on Thursday night until they arrived.  By the time the dust settled the kids didn’t get to bed until about midnight.  WAAAAAAAAAAAY past their bedtime.  We usually have them in bed by 8 PM.  Kim went nuts because of this.  The routine of picking up toys and relaxing in quiet were thwarted by the pending arrival of family.  You can read her blog HERE.  Always fun to see things from her perspective.

The kids have been having a great time playing with their cousins.  Aiden’s best bud is Brogan.  They are about a year apart in age, but you’d never know it.  One of the best things happened tonight.  We had Aiden walking around singing in Spanish and Brogan was walking with him singing in Chinese.  Brogan is in a Kindergarten class that is a Chinese version of Aiden’s.  Good times.  Paige has been having fun playing with the twins Elle and Asher.  They are a bit younger than her, but just a little bit.  Thankfully, we didn’t have a repeat of the last time we stayed at their house.  The sight of Elle with her hands around Paige’s throat because they’d seen enough of each other was scary, and definitely enough for one lifetime.  They are getting along great this time around.  It is also fun to see Finn and Everett interact.  There is only a couple weeks difference in age, but there is a big difference in size.  Pun intended.  Everett is long, but feels like a feather compared to our Tank.  Let’s just say that Everett probably won’t be a football training partner for Finn…just like Aiden won’t be.

Gram is just hanging out, reading, relaxing, and cleaning.  For Mom the “cleaning” falls under “relaxing” I guess.  Kelsey is trying to play ringleader, and I’ve been consumed in my office more than normal this weekend.  Thanks to the generosity of Puma, I spent a majority of Friday afternoon installing Windows 7 Pro on my laptop.  I bought it with XP Pro, then went to Vista Business, and now I”m on the newly released Windows 7 Pro.  Yes, I know I said that already, but it is new and I’m still a bit excited.  So far it is similar to Vista, but there are little things that I’m still playing with and learning.

I’m still waiting on the Yankees to finish on the series with the Angels.  Seriously…any time now Yankees.  Girardi.  Yes, I know I have no experience playing in the majors, or managing a major league baseball team (let alone the New York Yankees), but come on.  The way you go through your bullpen is crazy.  Using Joba Chamberlain as a set-up man for your set-up man?  Here’s a thought…you could save him in case the game goes into extra innings (like they all seem to in this series, Game 5 was fun though).  That way we don’t end up with a guy pitching that has LIMITED experience in the majors, let alone the ALCS.  Tonight’s game was rained out.  I’ve already set the DVR to record tomorrow with a three hour extension.  Finish it off so there is a little break between the ALCS and the World Series.  I beg of you!  We NEED another championship!

Off the soapbox now.

Today was the last game for Aiden and Paige for the Fall.  We were a little sad, but also relieved.  Paige was finally enjoying and understanding what she needed to be doing during her games.  She is the only one that consistently runs and wants to play on her team.  Well, I guess there is that other kid, but he wants to kick the ball in a straight line regardless of the direction he is facing.  I’m frustrated at the team she is on because the coaches don’t take it seriously, the parents of the other kids don’t seem to take it seriously, and all in all has been frustrating for us.  She is enjoying herself, and that’s all that matters.

Today was cold.  Quite cold.  Aiden’s game was first, and just like the first three of the season, we ended up playing most of the game 4 vs 5.  I think the other team scored A goal.  Yeah, one.  When they had an extra man for 3/4 of the game.  In the opening couple of minutes our team was up 3-0.  Well, Braden was up 3-0 on the other team.  He is the smallest one on the team (yes, he’s smaller than Aiden) and man can that kid get up the field in a hurry!  When Aiden got into the game we were all a bit disappointed to see him playing back on defense.  He and Austin both played defense most of the time, and they were BORED.  The ball almost never went into our backfield.  There is video of Aiden dancing in the goalie area because he was trying to keep himself entertained.  Partway through the third quarter when Aiden had just sat down, Kelsey said something about how they wanted to see him play, not just dance.  We just happened to be sitting next to the coaches wife who made a quick trip to the other side to talk with Coach Bo.  Thirty seconds later, Aiden was in on offense.  Once I retied the drawstring on his shorts (he was running around the field with one hand holding up his shorts) he was good to go.  He scored a goal, and was charging after the ball until he got tired.  Then he started half-ass running around the field.  I think we will work on conditioning over the winter and in the spring.

Paige was up next.  Like I said, it was cold.  We had all the other kids in our van watching a movie and the grown-ups were taking shifts sitting on the sidelines cheering on Paige.  There was one kid on the other team that was GOOD.  Granted there was only 2 kids from the other team, I think he scored all the goals for the other team.  Our team had one goal.  Guess who scored that….yup, that’s my girl!  Paige was slow going early on, but picked up the pace into the second half.  Proud of her, obviously, and look forward to the spring.  Hopefully we will get a couple more kids on the team that like to play as much as Paige.

We are sad that the season is over, but like Kim said, we WON’T miss the games in 40-50 degree weather….plus wind….

What a strange week.  Paige has been potty trained for quite a while now, and it has been pretty easy going.  Lately, though, we’ve noticed something.  Paige won’t wipe if the toilet paper isn’t on the roll.  By “on the roll” I mean on the springy roll on the wall…I’m sure there’s a technical name for it, but I don’t really care.  So, the other day while I was in my office, Paige went in and went to the bathroom.  When she came out Kim asked if she had wiped.  Paige informed Kim that she had not.  Naturally, you ask, “Why not?”  Paige’s response?  ”I didn’t wipe cause the pee is invisible.”  Kim relayed this to me and we both laughed.  Later that evening Paige and I had pretty much the same conversation.  I took the time to educate Paige that even though it is invisible she still needs to wipe.  And of course her natural response, “Why?”  Sad part, I couldn’t come up with an answer.  It isn’t my fault…..really!  When you get caught off guard by a toddler with a random question let’s see how you do…mmmmmmmmmmkay?

Yesterday.  Yesterday was going to be a challenge.  I got to bed late (around 0200) and Kim was working on Friday night.  I was going to have to get up with the kids in the morning, and try to be out of bed when Kim got home from work.  See, yesterday was Soccer Game day.  Kim was going to miss Paige’s game at 1230 and catch Aiden’s at 1500.  This was going to cut her sleep short in between two work days so being able to come home and go straight to bed would be VERY beneficial.  Any extra sleep possible is good with kids anyway.  Well Kim got home and Paige and I were passed out in bed (she joined me around 5 minutes after I went to bed) and Finn was still sleeping.  Not sure about Aiden since he wasn’t in the room with us.  Well, now how would Finn still be asleep that late?  Easy.  He had been awake (with me) for a good portion of the night.  I think I got around 3-4 hours of sleep Friday night.  Imagine my delight when I came downstairs to find one of the cats had peed on the floor in the living room the night before.  Whichever one it was appeared to be aiming for a Care Bear that was left on the floor, but they missed.  So I spent the next 10 minutes cleaning it up, then another 15-20 going over the area multiple times with a sanitizing wipe.  Thankfully it happened on the hardwood floors, not on the area rug.  Later that day after the soccer games were over (I’ll post another with recaps of both kids’ last two games) the kids were relaxing with a little Phineas and Ferb.  We love that show.  Out of the corner of my eye I see Paige running to the downstairs bathroom with a towel.  She’s not wearing pants.  This is not going to be good.  Sure enough, she was so into the show that she wasn’t paying attention to nature.  She made it into the bathroom but couldn’t get on the potty in time.  Soccer shorts (she demanded to continue wearing them after her game) and undies were soaked and lovingly placed in the laundry basket.  Step one: spend another 30 minutes cleaning up pee on the floor and sanitizing wipes.  Then I went to the laundry basket.  I appreciate Paige putting her urine soaked clothes in there….except it was clean clothes I had just pulled out of the dryer 10 minutes prior and had yet to fold.  Thank goodness for the sanitizing cycle on the washing machine.

Christmas is coming.  Aiden reminded me of this today.  We were sitting at the table eating lunch (Finn ate nearly his own body weight I swear!) and Aiden looked at me and said;

Aiden: “Dad, do you know what you want for Christmas?”
Me: “No buddy. Why?”
Aiden: “Well I was thinking that maybe you should get your very own Xbox for Christmas.”
Me: (thinking to myself) I already own an Xbox??? In fact, it is my second one to replace my original one so that I could get an HDMI output and bigger hard drive.
Aiden: “That way you will have your own Xbox, and Paige and I will have one.”
There ya go!!! While it appears he is thinking of me, he is in fact thinking of ways to get more Xbox time. Yeah, that’s my boy. So thoughtful of others, especially when it benefits him!

It should also be noted that Paige got up and went to the bathroom around 2130 last night.  She was kind enough to stand at the top of the stairs and yell down to me, “Daddyyyyyy….I got all the pee pees in the pottttty.”

Yesterday was the kickoff to our Fall 2009 soccer season.  Paige’s game was first at 1030 with Aiden’s following at Noon.  Now keep in mind that Kim worked the night before and was getting up after just a couple hours to attend the games.  They were too close together for us to be able to drop Kim back at home and then make it back for Aiden’s game.  Ok, really, it was partially because parking is usually a joke around there.  We had a parking spot and we wanted to keep it.

Paige’s game looked like it was going to be ok.  She was running, kicking, and doing fine during warm-ups.  Then all hell broke loose.  First problem was she wanted to use her ball for the game, and they had another one.  Meltdown #1.  The second meltdown occurred late in the first quarter after she finally stopped crying about it not being her ball.  She went into the game, but immediately melted down because she couldn’t get the ball.  Actually, this was the same reason for meltdowns 2-6.  Ok, I don’t know how many she had, but she was PISSED.  We are going to work on that this week I hope.  On a positive note, Paige, being the Princess that she is usually gets her way.  Her team was the Dinosaurs, but this was not to Paige’s liking.  Somehow they are now going by the Ponies.  Apparently she petitioned for a name change sometime during the team name yell before the game.  This was prior to meltdowns so I know it wasn’t a pity thing.  One of the sweetest things I witnessed was Aiden watching from the sidelines giving Paige tips while she was out of the game.  He is such a good big brother.

Aiden’s first game back was very entertaining….at least for the parents of the “Cobra’s”.  That’d be us.  The field is bigger, there are 4 players from each team on the field this time, but still no goalie.  Each team has 8 players and I think they are finally up to one hour games.  I know I’m slightly biased, but Aiden’s team plays well together, and there are some pretty good kids on the team.  Yes, I’m biased, but just take game number one into consideration.  Game starts, less than one minute later….GOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL.  After two more quick goals the referees decide the game isn’t quite fair.  Yes, we scored quickly, yes we’ve scored three times before the halfway point of the first quarter, ok, maybe this isn’t fair.  The on field ref goes and talks to both coaches.  Then we get back under way….four versus five.  Apparently, if the game isn’t appearing to be quite fair they stack it a bit.  Long story short….most of the game gets played 4 on 5….and the Cobra’s won like 10-3.  I think the other team scored all three of their goals in a 4 minute span when all of their biggest players were on the field.  Like I said, it was entertaining for us.  Aiden was running, but not at full tilt.  It was warm out, about 82 degrees, and the kids were tired.  First game of the season and Aiden needs to keep running…he was holding his side while running for a little while.  The thing that amazed me was how much Aiden has changed in the last year.  First couple games last year he was VERY passive….at one point in the game yesterday I saw him jump into the middle of three of the other team’s players to get the ball.  He got it out and moved down field a bit before it got kicked out of bounds.  It is very surprising to see how aggressive he has become.

We did feel a little bad because one of Aiden’s friends from preschool a couple years ago was on the other team….he scored one of the goals at least.