2 Years

Tomorrow is April 28th, which means it's been two years to the day since Lunchbox was born. There was something about a wedding on that day, too. While it's easy to see LB is only two-years-old (he seems more like six-months), it's hard to believe that a couple of years ago Shae and I weren't married. Two years ago I didn't really expect to have one kid by now, much less two. Nevertheless, here we are. Quite a couple of years.

I've been pretty swamped between work and home lately, so I hadn't noticed it has been almost three weeks since the last post. I guess that means it's time for an update on how things are going around here.

The babies are doing great. They keep growing, and their personalities keep developing like crazy. They aren't crawling yet, but Ella's close and they both roll enough to end up across the room if you take your eyes off them for a second. A couple of weeks ago Shae took the little ones with her up to Lockwood for a week, and it was hard to believe how different they were when they got back. They're on a pretty good schedule lately, and are sleeping through about half the time now (Or so I've been told. Shae quiets them down so quick I don't even hear them).

Lunchbox is doing his thing. As much as he acts annoyed by the new additions, he loves his babies and missed them when they were gone. Even though he got taken on lots of extra walks and got tons of attention (funny how that works when there are no babies around), he was a little depressed while they were gone. Every morning after breakfast he would run into the baby-room to see if they were there, go check Shae's side of the bed, look at me with a sad puppy-look, and then go plop and his bed and pout until he got put out for the day. He was VERY happy to get the rest of his family back. Almost as happy as Ella was to see him. Seriously, she might be a little too into her dog; she loves him more than she loves either of her parents.

Shae's doing fine too. She's back on one of her photography kicks, so she's been playing with our cameras and taking tons of pictures. That would be fine, except then she wants me to look at them. "That's a nice picture of a window." "Good picture of the door there." "Oooh, that's a great shot of a window and a door." Repeat. Oh, and somewhere in between taking pictures she finds time to take care of the kiddos.

As for me, I'm doing fine. Work is a little crazy lately, but everything is pretty good. I took over as the lead of our web team, so now instead of doing any real work I spend all of my time answering email and preparing PowerPoint briefs. Fun. It would be nice to be able to do some development occasionally, but overall things are going pretty well at work.

That brings us to the Great Rodent War of 2009. Since our last update, things haven't changed much. We don't have any more casualties to report, but we've deployed the weapons of mass rodent-struction (AKA D-Con) up in the attic and are just waiting on the little mice to eat themselves to death. Don't worry, we will emerge victorious.

Six Months

Today is April 7th, which makes it six months since Ella and Jackson popped out of Shae. It feels like it's been much longer than six months, but it's also hard to believe that it's already been half-a-year. I'm not sure how to explain it other than it feels like the babies have been around forever, but at the same time it seems like only yesterday that Shae was pregnant. Very weird.

The babies just keep on becoming little people. Ella's bottom two teeth are all the way in, and they definitely work (Shae and Jack both have the bite marks to prove it). She bites Jack, and he pulls her hair. It's a fun game they play. It's also getting really hard to keep Ella in one spot. She rolls all over the place, and even goes after her favorite toys. Her favorite thing to go after is Lunchbox. She sees him, gets all excited, and rolls/squirms over to him.

Jack's doing great too. He's not quite as mobile as his sister, but he is a very happy baby boy. He has a great laugh, and loves to play (if by play you mean lie on his back and kick and laugh). His hair has grown back from his friar hair-style, and his reflux is almost all gone. It's great to feed him and not get puked on 20 seconds later.

Last weekend, Shae took the twins up to Escondido to visit the Wild Animal Park and Kit Carson Park. She got a few cool pictures, and the babies are even in some of them. She's uploaded a few of them, and will be uploading more as she processes them. You can view them over in our gallery.

At War

March 20th, 2009:
I've been living in denial for months now, but the signs are too strong to ignore any longer. The mouse droppings in the sun room, the glimpses of a rat scampering back up into the palm tree when I go out to the patio late at night, (worst of all) the sounds of plotting coming from the attic. There really is no other explanation: the rodents are plotting to take us out. They've finally decided to put the information gathered by their mouse-spy months ago to use and launch their attack.

So far, the traps we've setup to defend against the rodents haven't netted us any prisoners, but at least the enemy seemed to respect them and stay away. now it sounds like that's all changing. It's time to stop playing defense and go on the attack. We've carefully setup some traps in their territory (the attic), and hopefully we can take out a few of their warriors.

March 24th, 2009:
Well, it's been four days since Shae and I launched our counter attack against the rodents and so far we haven't had any real success yet. The rat seems to have retreated to the palm tree (or at least he's doing a better job of hiding), but our traps in the attic have not succeeded. In fact, it seems that we are just feeding the mice peanut butter while they dodge the traps. Instead of capturing the enemy, I fear we're actually giving them the protein they need to grow strong enough to launch a full-scale attack. We have no choice but to deploy the "Rat Zapper" that we acquired from Shae's parents. I fear escalating the war, but the mice seem to be too smart for our outdated traps.

The Rat Zapper is an odd weapon. I thought we would bait it using cheese, but apparently you can't use anything "cheese-like" because it will complete the circuit and fry the bait. I would think burnt cheese would be hard for a mouse to resist (it's hard for me to resist), but I have no choice but to trust Shae since she has training on our new weapon. I guess the ideal bait for the Rat Zapper is cat food. This seems absurd to me. If you have cat food, it would stand to reason that you also have a cat. If you have a cat, why the hell do you need the Rat Zapper? Whatever, war is strange. We'll have to make do with dog food and hope the Box doesn't get his nose zapped trying to get a snack.

March 26th, 2009:
It seems we have vastly underestimated our adversary. Somehow, they found a way to disable our Rat Zapper; our new technology is no match for the rodent wits. (Either that, or the last rodent caught in the trap burned out the device. Whatever the cause, the Rat Zapper is not going to help us.)

In fact, instead of gaining a technological advantage over our enemies we seem to have upset the mice by escalating our attack. Today when I went to check on our attic trap I discovered that the trap was missing. That's right, the rodents have stolen our weapons. I wonder what their plan is. Are they planning to set the traps up where we'll set them off? Is one of the mice a mini-McGyver disassembling the traps for parts and building a super weapon? Things are not looking great for the humans in this war.

April 4th, 2009:
Our efforts seem to finally pay off. My scout (aka Shae) reported back that her morning trap-check was successful. We got one! Of course, my scout is of no use in disposing of our enemy's body so up into the attic I go.

My examination of the battleground revealed some interesting intelligence. The scariest part of the scene was the trap itself. The casualty lay next to the trap, but something had eaten all of the peanut butter from the trap. That means that another mouse finished off its meal while his comrade lay dead just inches away. These rodents are heartless. They will stop at nothing to grow stronger in preparation of the next attack. Again, I may have underestimated the enemy.

Next to the successful trap, I found something even more interesting: the previously stolen trap. What could this mean? Was the fallen mouse attempting to setup the trap to use against us when he was taken out? Could he have been defecting and bringing us our trap as a peace offering to gain our trust? Did another mouse catch on to his plan and take him out before he could defect (and then feast on peanut butter afterward)? Was the trap never stolen in the first place, but instead just got pushed out of sight where we couldn't see it until we went into the attic to clean up the carcass (that can't be it). Today was a good day for our side, but the determination of the rodents is intimidating.

April 6th, 2009:
The mice seemed to go into hiding for a day or so after the fall of their fellow warrior, but they seem to be getting back to plotting again. As I sit on the couch typing, I can hear them scurrying about overhead. I fear what their next attack will bring, but after our successful attack we are optimistic. We have set out additional traps hoping to keep our momentum going. We have drawn first blood, and we are hopeful that we can end this war quickly. I guess it's back to the battlefield. More updates as the war unfolds.