Eyes wide shut

So perhaps there will be some deep thoughts still on my blog. Of course this isn't really THAT deep and it is related to my children.

I was thinking today about how kids go to sleep. They fight and fight to keep their eyes open, then they finally give up and close their eyes. But once those eyes have closed, you can pretty much count on the fact that they are fully in dreamland.

Now, when I go to sleep, I first close my eyes, then drift off to sleep with my eyes already happily closed. So there is some period of time where my eyes are closed though I'm not yet asleep.

So at what point in our lives to we start to close our eyes first? I quite honestly have no idea, and it's been bugging me a little bit today.

SA (Soccerholics Anonymous)

My husband is obsessed with World Cup soccer. Normal professional soccer, not so much. Just World Cup soccer. Of course he also watches Formula One racing, but not any other kind of racing. He's sort of a sports snob. At any rate, I first discovered his obsession 4 years ago just after he moved into my house. He woke up one morning at an ungodly hour...

(Must interrupt myself here to contemplate that what I thought was an ungodly hour 4 years ago, pre-kids, is actually an hour that I have been awake for on a regular basis for the last 2+ years. My how things change.)

... which was around 3 or 4AM. He jumped out of bed all excited and told me he was going to watch the first World Cup game and he'd see me in a month. I thought he was exaggerating, but there really are a TON of games and he watched them all. He told me that for the next World Cup he wanted to go to Germany for two weeks to see a bunch of the games. I think my response was that in 4 years we would have a couple of kids and under no circumstances was he ditching me with 2 babies for 2 weeks to watch soccer in Germany.

Fast forward to 2006... (for those of you not living with a Soccerholic, the World Cup series happens every 4 years).

We actually do have 2 kids. And he is not in Germany. However, he is making an extremely valiant attempt to watch as many games as he possibly can. We come home, have dinner, put the kids to bed, and he disappears into the basement where TiVo is fathfully recording each and every World Cup game. Today the US played at 10AM and he actually left work with a group of friends to watch the game. And the children had to wear red, white and blue today. Unfortunately the US lost and will not be advancing. But the plus side is that not having the US in the mix cuts down a teensy bit on the obsessiveness.

I think I get my real husband back in a few weeks.

MINE!

My boys are exactly 51 weeks apart in age. I'm expecting that will make them the best of friends and worst of enemies over the coming years. Right now I'm finding most of their interactions very entertaining, and some of them are just highly frustrating.

One that comes to mind this evening is the words Nate (13 months old) is learning from his older brother. Thankfully neither is yet learning words that Mommy and Daddy should stop saying in their presence. Sean (the 2-yr-old) has recently started saying "Mine!", thanks in great part to the fact that Nate is now mobile and is stealing lots of toys from him. Unfortunately, Nate has picked that one up very quickly (along with "No!", "Woof" and "Nine" which is apparently the generic reference for all letters and numbers in our household). Today when I picked the boys up from their home daycare, our daycare provider's 10-month-old was very interested in crawling on me, pulling my hair, and other fun things that 10-month-olds do. Nate, very determined, came up, climbed on my lap, pushed him away and stated "Mine!".

It was kind of sweet... in a meanie 1-yr-old way.

My husband, the rock

Well, it's been almost a year, so I better get back to this blogging thing. Unfortunately, I have given up on being profound and this will likely turn into rantings and cute stories related to my husband and children. But hey, you aren't paying for this entertainment, so if it no longer interests you I won't feel too bad.

Last night I got to bed late, as usual. And at least an hour later than my husband, as usual. At 1:45 Nate (the little one) woke screaming and I went in to get him after the required trip to the bathroom to see if he'd stop before I was done. No such luck. Steve is still peacefully sleeping. Finally got Nate to sleep around 3:00, but he would not go back in his crib, so I resigned myself to sleeping in there for a bit. Woke again a little later and he was passed out enough to go back in his crib. Go back to our room and my alarm is going off quite loudly. Steve is still in dreamland. Turn off my alarm; get ready to leave for work; head out the door by 5:30AM.

When he got home tonight I asked: Did you hear Nate last night or my alarm? Nope. Ignorance really is bliss.