Mad Dog and I are big supporters of reading, libraries and education when it comes to our children (actually for everyone). Mad Dog makes it a point to take the kids to the library once a week and has taught them to respect the stacks that live within those walls. This is due to the strong memories and love he had for his library in his youth. A little while back Mad Dog made a promise to Lex on one of those trips to pick out books. The promise was when he turned five they would get Lex his first library card, something that was very important to Lex. He desperately wants to walk up to the desk and check out his books on his own with no help from anyone. On Thursday, five days before his fifth birthday Lex got his wish.

Our little man is now the proud owner of a Library Card, something everyone should have (I even have one, since  Mad Dog didn’t want to share anymore). Next he will be the proud owner of his first wallet to keep his card in, but that is a story of another time. With his new found independence Lex took out his first books and was kind enough to take out books for his little sister, Loki, who is looking forward to the day she turns five.

With two kids of my own, I have taken plenty of advice from others and even more that I have ignored. For me it has always been about staying honest to myself (and Mad Dog). Our parenting style (some might think “lack thereof”) is very us. We have a laid back look at life and so we take the same approach to parenting. This is not to say that our children have no discipline or that they have no structure, but we have learned it’s easier not to be so rigid. I think because of this both Lex and Loki are flexible to change and don’t let things get to them (that often).

Do I give parenting advice? I’m sure I do, I think it’s hard not to tell someone “Hey this is what I would do”. My brother, Sean and his wife, Tiffany are about to become first time parents in less than 2 months. Since telling us I have attempted to keep my wisdom (it is wisdom since I am older that Sean) to myself, unless I have been asked. This has meant keeping quiet as I reviewed their baby registries (new parents always pick things they’ll never use or don’t need until the child is walking) and staying quiet when reading their newsletters and other correspondence regarding the upcoming birth.This whole process for me was very different, because I had Mad Dog. He told me I didn’t need the this baby product or that. He knew that the diaper bag I wanted would be gone before Lex was 3 months and that the bright yellow rucksack that he got at Springfield College would work ten-times better and be around now that he is almost 5. He still walks me off the parenting ledge from time to time even now, reminding me to stop worrying. He’s the reason Loki wasn’t in speech therapy right from the get go and why she wasn’t sent away for potty training. On both counts he knew that we needed to let her do it in her own time.

In the last 3 weeks as the birth of his son approaches, my brother has called me more and more. Asking if we had a birthing plan (I told him it was just to get Lex out), how we found a pediatrician and how we handled Lex’s flat head. I think he’s getting a little nervous about “W”‘s (pronounced “Dubya”) arrival.  Of course he is – have you ever seen Sean with a baby? He looks like he thinks he break it. I don’t think this is unique to him, my brother Kevin didn’t like holding Lex when he was an infant or even Loki when she came along even with her being much a more substantial baby. Babies are much more resilient than you would think. I’m not talking about shaking them or throwing them up on the air, but they are a little tougher than all that.

I know my brother and I will have different parenting styles. It’s a given. We both remember our childhoods differently, our parents differently and have different personalities. In a lot of ways I had wished they were having a  little girl, though I would hate to see when she started dating what her suitors would have to deal with. My thought process was a little girl would warm his heart. I worry that he will be tougher on a son. His expectations will be higher and any disappointments even lower. I think as a parent in general you can’t compare your children to yourself. You can have hopes and dreams for them, but in the end you have to support them in their’s. Of course I have worries about Lex and Loki. I am terrified that they will have the same struggles in school I did. Mad Dog reminds me they are doing fine, they have their own pace and we have to support them. Easy for him to say, he was in the advanced classes. All this just reminds me I can’t push myself on my children. Loki is a tomboy, while still being a girlie girl. Lex loves comic books and video games, while he loves playing sports. They will grow into their own without any help from us, but the help is our gift to them for all they give us.

If “W” doesn’t like history, if he doesn’t like reading or even if he doesn’t like sports he’ll find something – but remember that is miles away (I bet it will be comic books and gaming, but then again he’ll have some good influences). First he has to get here. I’m looking forward to meeting my nephew and hearing all about my brother’s parenting adventures (I bet there is a post or two in it for me).

This week I’m trying to laugh as much as possible at a great many things, since I’m currently house-sitting for my Mother after being away from home on a business trip for a week. House-sitting isn’t a terrible thing when you think about it.  I get to use her car and I have free food (she left me money for groceries – you didn’t think I was eating anything in her refrigerator? She has that whole expiration date issue going on.) Add to this not having to worry about on-street parking or even commuting 45 minutes to work and you would think I was crazy to complain about things. Alas there is always a catch to a good thing, a line of fine print at the bottom of the contract. Mine this week comes in several forms.

My mother and husband, Stuart were kind enough to go to Florida on vacation for a week  taking along with them my Brother, Kevin and Brother-in-law, Brent and leave me with my 93 year old Grandmother (aka Nonna) and their dog, Indiana. Okay I can hear you now, “Man up it’s an old woman and a dog!” (as Mad Dog pointed out that’s like saying Dolores Claiborne and Cujo are just an old lady and a dog) and I would say the same thing, but when you add several other factors you have the actual possibility of me becoming an alcoholic before the end of the week or being one of the women who just disappear never to be heard from again. Let me lay out the rest of the universe’s evil joke on me.

House-sitting has placed me in Mansfield for the week, with both my children Lex and Loki. Two factors that no one else usually has to deal with in conjunction with Nonna and Indiana. This means hours of child harassment on the part of Nonna, some 3rd party parenting, barking (this is Indiana and not Nonna in case you’re wondering) and the continuous NON-STOP feeding of my children. If I didn’t know any better I would think she lived in the forest in a gingerbread house and was fattening them up for a feast. From personal experience I know she didn’t give me cookies as child, much less a whole bag in one day.

At 93 years old my Grandmother is experiencing some memory issues, which we all have the pleasure of experiencing with her. This means the dog might be fed 10 times a day and she never eats lunch. This is a little difficult to explain to a 3 and 5 year old after the thirtieth time she asks them, “What did you do at school today?” Though both my children are polite, it’s getting to the point that Lex is mocking her a bit. The mass chaos of the house is amplified to an unbelievable decibel, the dog barking and our attempts to keep up Loki’s potty training.  She is doing a great job despite all her Great Grandmother’s attempts to annoy her back into diapers. I think Loki will be opting for the lock on the bathroom door shortly, since every time Loki is out of sight for more that a minute Nonna has to hunt her down.

Add to all this that we are not in our normal environment, out of our regular schedule and short of patience with each other – and you get some  creative parenting on my part. I have advised both children, who are sharing the full bed in the guest room that they can be separated and one will be placed to sleep in the car outside and the other will be placed in the attic to sleep. I think Lex is catching on to this empty threat, but tonight I offered to pull down the ladder to the attic if he would like the accommodation. We have tough love in our family if you haven’t noticed. This was after he claimed he broke his ankle after running in the house. Through his tears he realized I wasn’t kidding that we could head to the hospital to have it amputated to stop the pain if it was so bad.

Lets now add a new layer to the madness- Mad Dog. Come this Thursday, my last link to reality, sanity and the possible difference between electroshock therapy and medication will be heading to Dallas, Texas for the Comic Pro Convention for business. Yes, I know you were reading all the above stuff and think she has Mad Dog-he takes care of her – yup I will have Mad Dog until Thursday morning about 3AM and then I am officially on my own. This means that my children, Grandmother and the dog can start on the final destruction of my mind. If you don’t think that is the kicker – (this might be way too-too- TMI for some of you) I am scheduled for my period any day now. Why no one thought to ask (this means my family, the Comic Pro people, Mad Dog and his boss and everyone else in the world) if I was going to have my period when I would be under all this stress is beyond me. I mean there have been generals and presidents in history that haven’t had to deal with people such as this under the best of circumstances.

All this means the little things are getting to me right now. Like tonight at dinner. I’m sitting across from my Grandmother and she is slipping the dog french fries. Lex asks simply, “Why does the doggy always want our food?” I just had to laugh and say I have no idea why he would, all the while I’m thinking about the line from the movie Moonstruck, where Olympia Dukaskis says, “Old man. . . you give those dogs another plate of my food and I’ll kick you ’til your dead.” Of course I’m A) not going to say this to my 93 year old Grandmother and B) not going to do it, but honestly I could not stop hearing that voice in my head. I completely understand why my Mother is slowly losing her mind. This scares me, because my Grandmother took care of her mother (my Nonna) until she drove her mad and now my mother is caring for Nana until she drives her mad and then Sandy will unleash the daughters curse on me and I on Loki (if I’m lucky she will take me). I find us worrying about everything she does. Mad Dog and I watch her doing something as simple as taking the dish detergent out to fill the dish washer, while grabbing a mug from the cabinet and we can see we’re both thinking that she might poison herself by accident. She of course is not that bad off by any means, but you do have to wonder what is going through her mind at the time.

It’s Tuesday. I have one more day of work this week (Wednesday) and then I am on my own until Sunday when they all come back to see if I survived. I guess someone has to take the arrow in the knee. I said “the knee” – I’m not taking it in both mind you!

Yes, I’m talking about the holidays and even more so 2011. It’s been a long year. A fast one, but a long one.  I know I haven’t been around lately, in fact in my tally of my 2011 blog posts I found that December 2011 was empty. Life got the better of me I’m sorry to say, but then again I guess to be living it rather than writing about it is something in itself. I know for a lot of people 2011 was a terrible year and one that people would be happy to forget. In someways I should be a part of that movement – instead of “Occupy 2011″ it would be “Forget 2011″. I can’t say that it was all bad, because here at the other end of it we’re still standing and we’re all the better for it. 2011 was about building character for us – having said that I kind of think of 2011 as having a good personality, but hell I don’t want to wake up next to it again tomorrow morning.

What happened to us in 2011? If you have kept up with my 72 blog posts through out the year, you know part of it. Yes, my final count on Road to Nowhere was 72 and a count on Cute Fan Girl Goes Local puts me at 60 for the year making a grand total of 132 for 2011. That does not of course include all the started entries where I thought you would delete me from your blog roll altogether if I posted them. None of these posts could be possible without my family, which at this point is poking me to wrap this up.

With December 2011 being a blank slate I feel I owe you something. It was wrong of me not to wrap it up in nice pretty paper, but honestly I just don’t have the strength. This is complete due to the fact that not only does the holiday season go by too fast, but this year we had it fast forward. I think we went from Halloween to today in 2.011 seconds. Even with our holidays on hyperactive hyper-drive, we still managed to get it all in. Both Lex and Loki found themselves facing the dilemmas of a possible Santa free Christmas when they had an elf accident with our Elf on the Shelf (or as we call him the Shelf on an Elf) friend. Both received calls from the big man himself, which were received as only my two children could. Loki took the call listening quietly, while Lex refused to take the call as it would be an act of admission that he did something wrong. Still with all their time-outs, cries and pouts they still managed to have a very good Christmas. So good that Lex keeps interrupting me to ask when we can play Disney Universe on the PS3. Yes, my son takes after me and can play more than just the Atari 2600 version of Pac Man.

To keep this post to a small roar since Lex might explode from waiting (he is being very good about holding off asking me the millionth time to play) I will close this post with a few high and low points of 2011 and hopes for 2012. I say hopes because resolutions are so 2011.

The Bee-Loud Glade (love it) and Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One. I listened to 32 audio books, most of them while I hammered away at work. Amazingly I was able to do that and still get a promotion. The last 5 to round out the 56 were Graphic Novels. My complete list can be found on my Reading Challenge 2011. I didn’t have a goal when I started, but in 2012 I do hope to surpass it. I should be able to hit the ground running since I have a HUGE backlog of audio books lined up thanks to Mad Dog and the Worcester Library.

In the highs and lows category there have been many. Mad Dog found himself suddenly unemployed earlier in the year. If you want to know, I’m still reciting my mantra “Hate the Man, Not the Product”. As a lot of things in life this was a blessing, Mad Dog found himself another dream job and is happy in his new role as Operations Manager at Modern Myths. His new position has allowed him to travel more, work with New York Bestselling Authors and given him the chance to remind me “I get to sell comic books today!” more often than I would like. I don’t let his head get too big, since he has to still ask me questions on Excel.

On the Mad Dog front this year we also said good-bye to his Father. No, not in the biblical sense, just in the practical sense. In someways this is a low as well as a high. While several of my friends have actually lost their fathers this year, I am sorry to say that Mad Dog’s father alienated himself from just about the last of his blood. Gabrielle did see them this past Christmas, but in a lot ways it was just for the presents I believe. Are Lex and Loki missing anything? No. Nothing but a few more toys under the tree or on their birthdays – the materialistic nature of my Father-in-law is nothing I want to teach my children.

Our youngest Loki has found her voice and her name. We’re proud to say that whatever personality we thought she had before has been amplified by her independent voice. She can talk circles around her older brother (hard to imagine that) and is very articulate. Though she is still in diapers, she will strike you down if you call her a baby. We are hoping her free spirit finds it in it’s heart to try potty training before we hit 2013. Hearing her talk to Mad Dog, makes me completely understand what my Mother meant when she would tease me about asking my Father for things and using the magic word “Daddy”. Loki tilts her head and says that word and Mad Dog is whipped. It of course helps that she is carrying around a Green Lantern Doll and asking him questions about Dungeons and Dragons.

Lex has taken a page from Loki’s book. He has found his own independence. Wanting us to let him do things on his own, like sit on a bench in Boston to rest while the rest of us go on to the ice sculptures. He wants to be allowed to go into the men’s room on his own, to make his own pace and to show us he is growing up. Mad Dog and I of course have had to explain to him about the dangers of this and because of our fears he allows us to watch at a slight distance. He has proven himself responsible for his little sister, taking care of her while I was to sick to. He is on the verge of 5, but is already so much older.

For me, I have found myself in St. Louis for business, a promotion and not enough time to put it all down on “paper”. With that said, I have found time for my family. We have spent more time together this year than we have in prior years. I’m looking forward to continuing that in 2012. For finding the time for one another, to sit, to be a family – even if it means it’s in front of the PS3.

With Thanksgiving in two weeks Mad Dog and I find ourselves in full holiday planning swing. Now, if you know Mad Dog and myself we are not “those” people. First of all Mad Dog works retail and for the last several years we would have seen this as standing at the gates of Hell waiting for his descent, but this year is a little different. Though he is the Operations Manager of the Northampton, Massachusetts comic and game shop Modern Myths, which is retail, he will most likely only be going to the third level of hell this season and not the ninth. For me its a battle usually to keep traditions going, plan them around a busy work week and make it as magical as possible for the kids. Easy stuff huh? Though since Loki’s birth 3 years ago, I have started doing my holiday shopping early, picking up gifts here and there throughout the year, I never get into full holiday crazy mode until after Thanksgiving (okay- yes I might plan our holiday cards early-but that is all). Why is this year so different?

The first week in December I will be traveling for business. Yes, I know you’re impressed and you didn’t have to roll your eye when you read that. I am well aware that people travel for business all the time and it’s not a big deal. What is a big deal is that it’s for the first week of December. A week isn’t long, but put it in the super holiday swing season and you have the possible makings of some lost traditions, missed photo opportunities, sad faces and a ruined holiday. I sound dramatic, I know.Though I am very excited for this work opportunity, I hate the idea of not being around the kids and Mad Dog for a whole week. This has made my head spin into that “Holiday Hyper-Drive” that I was talking about earlier. I’m in super planning mode to fit everything in. This of course is driving Mad Dog a bit nuts, since he boycotts stores that play Christmas/Holiday commercials before Thanksgiving. I’m praying Target holds off a bit and I can hide those commercials from him with a quick click of the remote.

What have I managed to do and plan since the start of my craziness? First I signed us up for Skype. No this is not a holiday thing, but it is a way for the kids to talk to me every night while I’m away face to face with a video conference. Mad Dog and I have set up both our Laptop and Netbook for this, which will mean the kids will get a little face time before bed each night. I don’t know if in the end this will make it harder or easier, but I know that my recent late nights at work leave at least Lex upset a little that he doesn’t get to say good night. This past week he left me a recorded message on one his toys (that weird yellow thing in the photo) saying, “Good Bye. I miss you Mommy!” Yes, he knows how to rub it in.

With Skype in place, I turned to my holiday planning and birthday planning. Santa isn’t the only one that checks his list twice. With Loki’s birthday falling on December 11th the weekend I come home from my trip, we felt it easier to have her birthday early. Another concern is that if we get hit with any type of serious snow, a parking ban would kill the party. With Mad Dog actually off on “Black Friday” we decided to do a small family party then. Loki has asked for a princess party, with balloons and cake and party hats. She selected pink and orange as her colors (we don’t know where she gets this from). I have started to make felt shields for all our men guests who will be knights of her kingdom and I will be making felt flower brooches  for the ladies of her court (her banner has a crest of a cat head on it). We are going to pick up a helium tank for her balloon request and planning a courtly Game of Thrones type menu if possible. Because of all the prep for her party and the fact I will be leaving the following weekend for work we have decided that we will be staying home for Thanksgiving this year. This was a hard call for me. Though Mad Dog is happy for the quiet family time (in general), I feel it isn’t the holidays if you’re not with your family. The last time we did this was when Loki was born, 3 years ago and it nearly killed me to stay home for Christmas and not be at my Mom’s. Luckily my brother Kevin and brother-in-law Brent, who have hosted Thanksgiving for the last several years were understanding. Still I am saddened we won’t be with them.

Skype- Check. Thanksgiving @ Home – Check. Birthday Party – Check. Looks like I’m well on my way. I can add our holiday photos and Christmas Cards to my list too. The first week of November I set to work on taking our Christmas photos of the kids. Though I won’t be sharing the end result here (sorry, I would like it to be a surprise to our friends and family) right now, I promise to post them once they are in the hands of the US Postal Service. They turned out great and I have Lex and Loki to thank for that (oh and our blue chair which is featured in most of our holiday photos). With the pictures taken, cleaned up and our cards selected on Shutterfly, I ordered them and received them this past Thursday. Mad Dog had to remind me that we can’t mail them until after Thanksgiving. I have to now do our labels and we’re good to go.

What else is left? I have my shopping just about done. At least the kids are, with the exception of stocking stuffers. The kids have been making paper mittens for decorations in the house and I have marked the calendar with other holiday traditions which we have to get in. This coming week we are going to visit Santa at Bass Pro Shop for pictures on a half day I have scheduled.  We’ll be purchasing and decorating our tree the week before I leave (yes, we get a real tree). Mad Dog is scheduled to make graham cracker dough for our Gingerbread Houses (the kids tend to like the homemade graham crackers better) the end of the week I’m gone, so that I can cut, bake and assemble the houses (Saturday when I get back) for decorating with the kids on Sunday. I want to plan ornament and gift making with the kids, which will probably fall the weekend before Christmas. All this and we still have to find Christmas Pajamas for the family and see when Gabrielle is coming from WI. Oh and I forgot that I want to make something for the staff at our Lowe’s for all their wonderful work they did for the kids through out the year at Build and Grow.

Now to take a deep breath and back to work!

After last night I’m starting to equate children to zombies. Zombies swarm to brains and children swarm to candy. I honestly am very surprised that we don’t hear more about small children (or helpless adults) being trampled to death on Halloween night when the hoards of children attack  unsuspecting  front doors for that sugary sweetness they crave. I found that my two little ones have joined the ranks of the sugar-craving undead. Though we thought a good night’s sleep would wipe most of the dreams of nougat and caramel from their little heads –  it didn’t. I had forgotten that whole bit about dreams of “Sugar plums” dancing in their heads at Christmas time, which means no holiday is safe.

With Halloween festivities being canceled (or rescheduled) all over Massachusetts I think we saw a surge of Tricker Treaters in my Mother’s neighborhood (if you don’t live in the northeast – we had a freak Northeaster this past weekend which dumped snow and downed power lines around the region). Though we live in Worcester we do our Trick or Treating in the neighborhood I grew up in- Mansfield, Massachusetts. I get to walk the streets of my old haunts and see the parents of old childhood friends and neighbors. Makes for a nice evening overall. This also gives my Mom a chance to see the kids dressed up, laugh at Mad Dog and I as we struggle to wrangle our excited little monsters and spoil them with more candy and treats than we can imagine.

This year I think is the first year Loki truly  understood what is going on. As I mentioned in a previous post (see Where is My Zombie Detector App?) Loki has been dedicated to her Halloween costume selection from the very beginning. She was very excited to be a Kitty Cat this year to the point where she wore her cat years around the house all day Sunday after playing in the snow outside. This little bit of information will come back to bite this blog writer in the ass later in this post (keep that in mind). Lex, our house robot, has been driving Mad Dog nuts with his costume creation. Each day he asked if they could work on it. Somehow the whole thing came together in time, with a few minor issues.

Monday night, Mad Dog and I converged on my Mom’s house. Mad Dog traveling from Northampton Massachusetts and myself after picking up the kids at daycare in Plainville. My Mom, who had left work early to help clear their yard of tree-debris, was good enough to have dinner ready early (I say early since I swear every other time I come for dinner we don’t eat until 8 o’clock) so that I could feed the kids and get them dressed for Trick or Treating. Mad Dog showed up during dinner, ate and started to assemble Lex into his costume which was a good thing since I had no idea what he had done to get him into it. I had the task of placing full make-up all over my 2 year old daughter’s face, a task I don’t think I ever want to tackle again.

I love Halloween and because of this I like to go all out. This means serious make-up. I’m looking forward to when the kids get a little older and I can gore them all up. (I’m thinking Loki will be Carrie from the Stephen King novel one year – she’ll look amazing covered in Karo Syrup and food coloring.) Loki started out being very still and it went down hill from there. She wanted to watch television, she wanted a drink, she wanted to eat more food and worst of all we had tears and snot. I know Stan Winston never had to deal with Alan Rickman‘s tears and snot when they made Galaxy Quest. I somehow managed to cover her face, but sadly I had nothing to do with the cuteness factor – that was all Loki. When it came time to put her cat ears on (remember what I said before about biting me in the ass) they were nowhere to be found. Why was this? Because I let her wear them around the house on Sunday and they were somewhere back in Worcester. Lucky me I had the little black bow tie that came with the cat ear set which I was able to make look like kitty ears and prevent any more tears and make-up smugs.

Lex’s costume had a few issues. The main robot costume was made out of a comic book long box, which Mad Dog covered in silver duct tape. Skinny Lex slipped into the box and then we placed the cover on as the front panel. We taped this in place. In prior walking tests we had no issues, but when we did them we had not taped the box lid in place. Once taped in, Lex’s robot walk became completely authentic. He was not very mobile. In fact if you pushed him over he couldn’t get up on his own. Mad Dog made some adjustments and turned on Lex’s control panel lights. We then placed Lex’s head on. This was made of a box with my broken 50mm lens pieces mounted on the front for eyes. Mad Dog created a slit which acted as the robot’s mouth and Lex’s eye slit so he could see where he was going. Once the head was mounted on, we hit the road running for candy (well Loki and I did – Lex was a little slow). About 50 feet from the house Mad Dog and I made another adjustment to the Lex 2000. With the walking motion, Lex kept hitting his face on the front of the box that acted as his head. We removed the head and mounted it on backwards so we could get to the first house.

We did 8 houses in all (I couldn’t imagine doing more with the pace we were moving at), with both kids getting major praise for their costumes. Lex informed everyone we met that he was a robot (yes, Lex should have been Captain Obvious). The tricking and treating was slow since our robot didn’t move very fast. My suggestion for “next time” was to place him on roller blades so we could pull him along. At the third house, we were passed by a family on a “Golf Cart”. Yes, you read that right.  No my Mother doesn’t live on a golf course or a Florida country club community; she lives in Massachusetts on a block where the houses are (though not too close together) not miles away from each other. I felt like I was visiting the Roloff Farm. What the hell? Mad Dog is now demanding that my Mom and Stuart have a cart for us next year for Halloween festivities.

At the fourth house Lex made his way up the walkway only to attempt the stairs on his own. He fell over landing on the step face down, arms waving, crying out “can someone help me up?” Mad Dog and I being the loving caring parents we are, couldn’t move because we were struck so hard with laughter that tears were pouring down our faces. It was brilliant, yet pitiful all at the same time. We did eventually help him up before anyone came to the door.

We finished out the evening by visiting my Mom’s neighbor’s the Palmieri’s. I have grown up next to the Palmieri’s most of my life. My brother’s and I have been friends with the four Palmieri boys as long as I can remember and it’s always good to see them all.  This evening we were greeted at the door by the youngest, Jason and the oldest, Gary. Lex talked Jason out of a second treat and we received some extra Trick or Treating suggestions from Gary (he told us who was giving out full candy bars in the neighborhood). As we left, the Palmieri’s farmer’s porch was taken over by a legion of small candy undead. They pushed, shoved and fled as fast as they came with their pillowcases a little fuller. Loki and I escaped by the skin of our teeth.

Each of the kids were allowed one piece of candy from their bag before we headed home from Nana Sandy’s. Loki was smart enough to see the loophole in my statement and took a piece from Nana’s Sandy’s candy surplus (my Mom went a little over board on her candy purchases this year) for herself and suggested Lex do the same. Personally I can’t argue with that, especially when I get out smarted by a 2 year old. After hugs, kisses and thank yous we  headed back to the Hellmouth (aka Worcester) for sweet dreams and maybe a few more haunts.

If you’ve been in your family zombie-shelter or have just been too busy Occupying Wall Street, you might have missed the fact that it’s October. What is so big about October – do you really have to ask? Halloween of course! Though I know there are a lot of people out there who don’t care (oddly I’m friends with a lot of those people right now) for this dark, mischievous holiday – I personally love it. Both Lex and Loki are cut from the same cloth and are preparing for all the tricks and treats they can muster.

Things are in full spook mode here in Worcester. The house is decorated, costume selections have been made and we’re gearing up for the big night. The kids are mostly worried about their costumes. Loki, with her strong will, has managed to stick with her first selection throughout all costume temptations out there in the stores. She has asked to be a Kitty-Cat. Though there was some talk about being an orange cat, we have settled on a black cat at this time (to our relief). Lex, on the other hand, has jumped around a bit, from a T-Rex to a Ninja to Mickey Mouse back to T-Rex and finally to a Robot. After many conversations he has decided on the robot, so we have been able to start to purchase and collect components for his costume. Both children keep asking Mad Dog and myself what we are going to be. Mad Dog had it easy since he has a complete costume already made and will be Derek Wildstar from Star Blazers (late 70′s early 80′s cartoon). What about me? I have been given the option to dress-up at work this year, but have been told by friends if I’m too gross I won’t be spoken to for the day (see what happens to them when the zombies show up). I think I will be scaring it up a bit, you’ll just have to wait and see.

We have kicked off the scare-fest with the season premiere of  AMC’s The Walking Dead here in our house. Of course the kids weren’t involved, but Mad Dog and I enjoyed the premiere and all the gory.Yes, they up’d the gross factor this year, but damn is it pretty yuck!  If you weren’t a part of the 8.3 million viewers there has to be something wrong with you. It’s not all about the scare factor, for those of you who don’t like the yuck. It’s well written and the characters are people who you will care about. We watched it in the living room, since I thought removing the images from our bedroom would help me sleep better afterwards; I was mistaken. Let’s just say Mad Dog had to check out every sound I heard that evening and we watched several episodes of Steven Moffat’s Coupling. Yes, it wasn’t my normal Spiceworld or Bring it On, but it was funny and helped me forget my zombie worries for a moment to fall asleep.

With a machete and a baseball bat by our bedside we are settling in for a long scary holiday season. As part of it we are of course helping celebrate All Hallows’ Read. This holiday tradition started by author Neil Gaiman (check Gaiman’s great video promoting it) supports the idea of giving a scary book to someone. Someone you love, don’t love, someone you know or don’t know – whichever way it is give a scary book. This is in no way an excuse to replace the regular tradition of candy giving, but a great reason to give a book and to encourage reading at all ages. Of course it doesn’t have to be new, it can borrowed and if you can find one it can even be blue too. Wow, I think I’m channeling Dr. Seuss in this post a bit. Remember this is for all ages, all you need to do is select an age appropriate book. A few personal recommendations:

Novels:

• Ghost Story by Peter Straub
• Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
• Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
• Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
• World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
• The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons
• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Not bad huh? I mean them, not me. With all you hear about divorce and all the other unsavory stuff in the world related to doomed marriages, it’s nice to hear about a couple celebrating their 10th anniversary together. I’m looking forward to mine in another six years, if the kids don’t kill us first.

To celebrate their big day, they didn’t skulk off for a romantic weekend without the kids away from their current life. Our friends Marny and Michael did a truly amazing thing-they brought together those people who helped them celebrate on that beautiful fall day in 2001. Their first plan was to invite the wedding party for an adult dinner at Bittersweet Farms in Westport, Massachusetts the place where they made their vows 10 years ago. Times have changed for some of the wedding party, like myself I’m now married and have two small children. Rather than exclude their children and the others for the party they rethought their plans. Instead of cocktails and entrees all dressed up at a restaurant we came together at their home for a homemade meal, great conversation, pillow fights and juice boxes.

The ladies chatted inside as Marny threw together a salad, while the Dads talked outside and Jim, Michael’s Best-Man became the parties official kid wrangler for the afternoon. We caught up on our lives, talked books, kids, jobs, ate good food, refereed kids and ate ice cream with cookies. Though not everyone could be there that day, we shared what we knew of others, memories and laughs. The kids played, got hurt, were comforted and played on, probably unaware that long before they were born the adults in the other room had lives and laughs before without interruptions. I was sorry that not everyone could be there that day, but I was happy to share the great company with those who were.

I guess my reward for introducing them all those years ago, is that I get to share in their lives through our friendship. I have watched them buy a house (and painstakingly strip wallpaper from just about every crevice of it), build that house into a home, welcome Mad Dog as a friend, have their first child, attend other good friends weddings, change jobs, hold my first child, join me at my wedding, lose parents, celebrate birthdays, grow successful projects, have their second child and so much more. Not a bad reward for not knowing I had done anything in the first place, huh?

Marny and Michael I wish you ten more years full of friendship, love and happiness. Thank you for letting us all be apart of it.

Let me warn you before you get too excited that though I am reading the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series by George R.R. Martin this is not a post about the books. Of course this warning is more for the occasional internet searcher who enters “Game of Thrones” into their search engine and weeds through the hundreds of posts to click on me, in hopes of an everyday persons review of the books or maybe some hot-fan-fiction featuring Tyrion, Catelyn and Bronn. That is not what you’re about to dive into, in fact that is about the furthest thing from that. It’s about potty training.

See I warned you! I will say that part of the reason I haven’t posted about this or more regularly recently, is due in part to Mr. Martin’s books. I haven’t been able to put the books down. At this moment I have started to read the fourth in the series, but prior to that every free moment I have had has been with one of these books in hand. So it was rather fitting to name this post “The Game of Thrones” since it will be full of battles, potties, bribes and a strong minded little girl.

About a few weeks ago, we started a strong advance forward down the road of potty training with our daughter Loki. Something you should clearly know about Loki is that she has a strong personality and an even stronger will. Her new thing is if you call her anything other than her name (especially “baby”), she’ll turn to you and yell “I’M LOKI GENDREAU”. This new sense of identity has resulted in many screaming matches between her and Lex, with her on the verge of taking his head or tongue to stop his nonsense.

Back to potty training, we started off as we did with Lex. I created a sticker chart, found her ‘big girl panties’ she would want (Tinker Bell was her pick), and of course the token bribe. In Loki’s case the prize was a Disney Fairies dress-up costume, which is hanging on our bathroom door as a reminder of our goal. Everyone says that training girls is easier, which I was excited about since Lex was honestly a cake-walk. I think my cockiness as a parent was struck down, because when that notion came up about girls being easier – they weren’t talking about Loki.

She seemed excited, that was her first deceit. Since Mad Dog is home with the kids on Thursday and Friday, and I have them the weekend we thought that a four-day stretch would be perfect to test the waters. That first Thursday morning Loki got up with a dry diaper, and Mad Dog said “let’s try to use the potty!” Loki responded with a big “NO!” Being the parent and being bigger, Mad Dog persisted; picking her up and taking her into the bathroom. After no luck, he showed her the big girl panties she was going to wear. She gave him a stern “No!” and locked her legs so he couldn’t put them on her. This small battle ended with Mad Dog placing her in her pajama bottoms with no underwear on.

The plan was for Mad Dog to put her on the potty every 15 minutes until he had a result or he got some type of response from her to go herself. The idea of placing her in underwear and not training pants was that training pants are the same type of crutch as diapers. We only use training pants for when we’re out and about. With Lex, if he wet himself in underwear he was devastated by it and the thought was that Loki would be the same way. Before the bells could chime again at the 15 minute mark, he found that she had wet herself and continued to play. She didn’t flinch, she kept going “happy as a pig in shit” as Mad Dog put it. We should have known at that point we were in for a long fight.

To make a long tale short, we gave up. Not forever, but at least for now. We’re going to give it some time and try again. The bribe still hangs on the door and the sticker chart sits empty on the wall, with the hopes that she will find it in her to try again. In a few weeks we will go again, play will resume and the Game of Thrones will continue.

My brother Sean and his wife Tiffany came for a visit up from Fort Lauderdale. This year their visit came on the heels of Gabrielle leaving for the summer, Hurricane Irene and my weekend with the kids in Maine for Labor Day (see You Won’t Like Me When I’m Angry). When they visit they try to make time for as many friends and family as they can. To help make things easier on them, my Mom usually hosts a dinner or something for our family to see them. This allows Mad Dog, the kids and I to come down and carves out time from my brother Kevin’s and brother-in-law Brent’s schedules for us all to see each other.

Along with our dinner together, Tiffany and Sean always try to take the kids for a day. This gives them a little one-on-one time with Lex and Loki. Not only is it good for the kids to get to know them better, since we see them about twice a year but it also gives Sean practice for any future plans to be a father. As usual we didn’t tell Lex that they were coming, since we wouldn’t hear an end to the questions about when they would be here. This trip they took them to the play ground and a visit over to Tiffany’s parents house, where they were set loose on their music room. For Lex and Loki, this is a dream come true. They love music and we can only hope they have some type of musical talent, which neither Mad Dog or I have. Loki found herself jamming behind the drums with Lex on piano and Sean on guitar. Lex’s proudest moment was that he actually made the trombone make noise. By the time we were ready for dinner, the kids were beat.

The wait for Kevin and Brent to show-up with the food (which was made difficult by the fact that a lot of restaurants in the area were closed since their food stock had gone bad with the power outages from Hurricane Irene) got to be a little much for Sean. My brother was sitting on a egg that he needed to hatch before he burst. He brought the kids each a little package, with one for Gabrielle as well. Inside they found t-shirts which read, “I Love My Cousin”  across the front and “Coming Spring 2012″ on the back.

If you know my brother, you would know that just about every year since they have been married Sean has made a joke (April Fools’ Day or otherwise) about Tiffany being pregnant. Needless to say this has left our family a tad bit jaded. Because of this and a long day at work the t-shirt was initially lost on me. Mad Dog however turned to me to say “They’re joking!” It wasn’t until the ultra-sound picture was presented to us did we believe (this was because I didn’t think my brother was clever enough to make a fake one). To show you that this mindset runs in our family after multiple jokes, when Kevin was told he said “Yeah right!” and walked away. He felt terrible after, claiming he thought is was just another one of Sean’s stupid attempts to fool us. The joke will possibly be on us still, because the baby is due at the end of March, early April. Mad Dog was nice enough to point out just in time for April Fools’.

The rest of the evening was made up of Kevin, Brent, Mad Dog and I trying to give them great Baby Names (their selections are a little plain-jane for our tastes, but there is nothing wrong with that). We had some favorites I thought I would share.

• Chewie Fletcher (Star Wars homage)
• Brody Fletcher (Jaws/Mallrats homage)
• Zelda Fletcher (Legend of Zelda video game homage)
• Tyrion Fletcher (A Game of Thrones homage – we had Arya as well , though it was recently used by a friend of ours for her new born daughter)
• Hal Jordan Fletcher (Green Lantern comic book homage)

There were many more and a lot of laughs in between. We’re all very excited for the new baby. Of course before we left that evening they asked that we not tell anyone until they gave the okay. “No Facebook or blog posts!” I think that was directed at me, what do you think? Please let me assure you that I am not breaking a promise to keep my big blog mouth shut; I sat on this. They have recently made several posts on Facebook regarding the blessed event themselves, which I took as a green light to post something. I honestly can’t wait for all the stories and future blog posts this child will bring me. One additional piece of news, they asked Mad Dog to be the Godfather to …Aragon Fletcher…okay that was just another attempt at a geek name. He happily accepted and is already planning recommended comic book reading lists for the baby and it’s first viewing of Star Wars. Along with his Godfather duties, Mad Dog gave Sean some advise – “She is right for the next 9 months!” (Was I really that bad?)

Congratulations Sean and Tiffany! We look forward to our newest family member and all the years of fun to come.