I am done with school for three weeks!!!!

I am pretty excited but you should see Livvy. She is super excited to have me home. We've already started making our plans for the "big projects" and goals to accomplish in the next three weeks. True to a married couple our goals were slightly different in there approach. I was thinking of all the things I actually do with some of the legendary "free time" I have been hearing about. This involved exercise, reading non-school books, hanging out, etc. Livvy, on the other hand, was thinking about all the things she could accomplish with me now home, including reorganizing the entire house and Tristan proofing--he is getting into more and more stuff with his independent tendencies. Despite our different approaches our goals were actually quite similar as for both of us our goals required each other. We'll be married eight years this march and we're getting the teamwork thing down fairly well.

I finished off the school quarter thankful to be done and thankful to be passing. I have not been earning what I would call bad grades but that has not been my goal. My main goal with school beside the obvious become a doctor is to be with my family as much as I can. It would be very easy for me to spend all my time studying and being at school but I would miss out on the childhood of my children and my relationship with Olivia would suffer. So I spend time at home and get okay grades.

Tristan woke up before Livvy and I this morning--I had left the door unlocked because I went in there to chase away bad dreams Julian had of not being able to find his car seat--and decided to be independent again. There should be high suspense music playing right now and for those who read Olivia's blog, see the link, you will know why.

Tristan had pooped in his diaper and decided to take care of it. So he did what any three year old would do I guess. He took off his poopy diaper in the playroom, left it there, and went into the bathroom. As anyone knows when you poop you need toilet paper; lots of it.

After personal hygiene came cleaning up after your poopy diaper still in the playroom. The best thing for that is soap of course!

Having thus cleaned up his mess he could now inform Dad that he needed a new diaper. Groggy eyed I followed Tristan into his room where he got me a diaper to put on him and told me that he pooped in the potty and wanted a sucker. "I used toilet paper too!"

"Let's go see" I said. With that we went into the bathroom. The toilet was full of water with a huge wad, probably the whole roll, of toilet paper clogging it. For some reason there was one Q-tip in there too.

Tristan had taken off when I walked into the bathroom so after I fixed the toilet issue I followed after him to let him know the proper amount of toilet paper required to actually flush the toilet. I walked into the play room and stepped on something slimy.

Being the scientist that I am I looked down at what I stepped on and then I smelled it.

It turned out to be soap, thankfully. There was soap on the rocking chair, some of the couch, on the floor, and on a storage bin lid. I am thankful for that last one because it was easier to clean up. In looking for where the soap was I found the diaper... It wasn't so bad except for a glob of matter on the floor. Though I am still watching my step while in there. The carpet is multicolor and it's a little hard for me to pick up isolated brown spots in there because I am partly color blind.

At least this time Tristan was trying to be productive. He used up an entire roll of toilet paper and half the bottle of soap but he had good intentions. Our goal this winter break is to potty train him at all costs. I'll let you know how it goes.

Surprise!!!!

Who would have thought that I would blog two times within the same month, let alone in the same year? Not I that is for sure!

I was sitting downstairs with Olivia bemoaning our somewhat frightening student loan budget and debt when I heard Julian crying up in his room. I had just put him in there five minutes before, so being perplexed I went upstairs. Julian was crying on his bed. I laid down next to him and asked what was wrong to which he said "I can't stop thinking about taking Howie's skin off. It seems like a good idea but it's really scary!"

For those of your who may not know Julian has quite the morbid imagination. He used to tell us stories of dreams that would scare anyone, and he just comes up with them. We don't let the boys watch scary shows, nor do we take them to scary places but still Julian just comes up with this stuff.

I was able to calm him down and we had a nice conversation. We talked about how we will be moving after I am finished with school and what kind of places he would like to live. Julian replied that he would like to live where it snows all the time and the snow is this deep (holding up his hands to be about a foot apart). Then he started talking about how it would be cool to live in Hawaii to see the volcanoes erupting. I have no intention of living in Hawaii but told Julina that when we can afford a nice, big vacation that I would take him to Hawaii, to a volcano, so he can see the volcano erupting. Julian became all wide eyed and asked "will it get me?"

"No" I said, "we'll see it from far away... in a boat."

"Oh! The hot lava would get all steamy in the water and sink!" With that he smiled.

Being a dad brings some very pleasurable and memorable moments to my life. Talking with my son on his bed about skinning cats, eternal snow, and volcanoes when he should be asleep is one of them.

Hello out there in the great void!!! I think that I am unintentionally trying to see what the least number of times I will post is before I die. I guess by posting this I am hopefully not trying to find out. I am currently sick thanks to one of my classmates at school. Chiropractic school is fun but I get close to quite a few faces and if that face is sick... Oh well.

Olivia and I are waiting to find out how Emily is doing after having her baby. We're praying for you Emily! Hopefully everything will be fine soon.

Unfortunately my brain is fried and I would like to go to bed. I'm looking forward to see how long it will take me to post again. I am also looking forward to seeing how many people realize that I have posted.