Last One is in fast lane

Our little treasure is named Mahoro and has turned 3 years on May 12th.

We wanted him to be potty trained and my wife (and that timeI was traveling at customer's sites a lot) tried to train him. Total failure, cries, screaming and lots of wet pants followed.After trying very hard for 3 weeks, whe/we gave up.

Then summer came and with it, the grand father (my in-law). We decided to train him again. We let him choose his pot and surprinsingly, after few days and few incidents, he started picking up himself. During several days he asked to be guided to the pot (he had few poo incidents). Then he went alone. Then he decided to put himself his clothes on in the morning. In few weeks, he transformed himself from a baby (diaper, crying, etc.) into that sort of little man, so confident that he can tell you things you won't believe.

So now we are the very proud parent of a little pest named Mahoro being the cutest kid in town.

Pole dance

boys' fight

So we have three boys aged 7, 4 and 2.

Guess what they like the most? fighting one another.

I push you, you push me, I slap you, I laugh, you cry, you slap me, I cry....where will it stop?

Usually when I get into the room and shout with my big voice. Sometimes once I turned my back, they get on again.

I decided it shall be a phase. They have to fight to push out their anger (I'm younger than you and it's not fair), their hormones (I'm grown up I need to dissepate all this energy) and their boreness (what can I do now? well let's fight).

What do you suggest? What do you do? What are your tips against this?

What about the kids?

The kids were excited from end of November till now.

As anyone else, we thought this was due to the holidays, well kind of now.

Since now all the Christmas decorations are down, no one talks about the old man gettin in the chimney, the gifts have been separated, destroyed or dropped in a corner. So what do we do?

First we have some luck. Since two days our daughter has some rash and buttons. It's hurts so we give her some syrup for that kind of symptoms. The syrup makes her sleeping better at night. She has not really been better during the day (to not forget about what we just say, or do obey when we order for the third time to do something) but the little one wants some syrup too. I gave him tonight. I will let you know the outcome. Because until now and getting into his 33rd month, little one has been wakening up 3 to 4 times a night.

I have no chance with the two other boys. For a reason or another, they fight. Younger brother wants to beat older brother and older brother hits him hard when he can. If the second comes by surprise, he gets some chance. So we ahve to step in those fights and we know they soon start over.

I know it's a temporary situation, but it does not really help when you are at the grocery shop with two boys figthing the little one crying because he had not enough sleep and the elder not listening and going errand in the shop.

Well it was a day like the others, but the fact it was Sunday was not helping.

Lost Puppy

Days like this

Someone rings at the door and my 2 years old shouts "pizza man". Obviously he forgot that his mother is used to order online and that at 1:35 PM usually we do not order pizzas.

But hey, he's been in the US for 9 months now so is getting used to eat at any time.

Well ending up being the UPS delivery for some books. Yes she (my wife) is reading and not only blogs and tweets.

That will make the day better for her. This morning I had a Tele-Conf at 8AM. I could not drive the kids school. So she had to get out of the bed, make the breakfast and drive the kids. As yesterday she decided I will stay in bed, it's been two days in a row. Since I'm home since a month now, it's my daily task to do that (and the dish washing, clothes washing, feed the kids and so on). When she drives the kids (and wake them up, make breakfast, dress them, check their homework and so on), I feel sad. I know she wants me to rest, but I do not want her to be under so many constraints.

I'm usually out several days in the week and several months I've been working out of home all the week long including several week-ends. I feel guilty about this. Having my wife to deal with everything going around and not been able to support her.  I know that it's a usual cliche but I do not know how to make her life better when I'm not here. I do try to do few things when I'm in and do my best at it (I will never clean the house as well as she does). Life is unfair sometimes.

I appreciate a lot the fact she is not upset. I guess her new diet is going well and that brighten her day.

Well that's a nice day for me. I hope she will have better days but, as she enjoys some of the moments she had, this one not being bad, I guess she could have some more, right?

Purina Diet ... it really works

Yesterday I was buying 2 large bags of Purina dog chow at Walmart, for my dogs Winston, Chief, Gus, and Maximus. I was about to check out when a woman behind me asked if I had a dog. What did she think, that I had an elephant?

Since I had little else to do, on impulse, I told her that no, I didn't have a dog, and that I was starting the Purina Diet again, although I probably shouldn't because I ended up in the hospital last time. On the bright side though, I'd lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of every hole in my body and IVs in both arms.

I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is to load your pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry and that the food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again. (I have to mention here that
practically everyone in the line was enthralled with my story by now.)
Horrified, she asked if I ended up in intensive care because the dog food had poisoned me. I told her no; I had stopped in the middle of the parking lot to lick my butt and a car hit me.

I thought the guy behind her was going to have a heart attack, he was laughing so hard!
WAL-MART won't let me shop there anymore.

Let's introduce ourselves

Here is a picture taken when we decided to left France.
Even though we left later, we went to the photographer in September 2007.