Annie the little helper

Annie has become quite the little helper lately. It all started one day when we were in the kitchen, and Annie was being Annie... meaning she was probably doing a lot of things that she wasn't supposed to, so we pulled a chair over so she could stand at the counter and see what we were doing. Well, ever since that point any time either of us is doing anything in the kitchen Annie immediately goes for a chair and starts squealing until she's right in the middle of the action.

Here she is playing in the sink. I don't know why, but you just put some water in there and a few kitchen utensils and she will stand there and splash and play for hours.

Poor Jordan (warning, graphic photos...)

Last weekend was the last wrestling tournament of Jordna's collegiate career. And since he basically threatened all of us by saying we'd be dead to him if we didn't show, we all met up in Springfield for the big event. And big event it was. We arrived about 15 minutes before his first match...


The match begins, Jordan is doing great. Not much happens in the first period, Jordan would later say he was working on tiring his opponent out. Second period, Jordan wins the coin toss and chooses bottom, which I'm assuming is so he can escape or get a reversal and post some points on the board. Within about 45 seconds of the second period Jordan is on his way to escaping, and his opponent has his leg... and next thing you know the guy went one way and Jordan tried to go the other way and all you can hear are three very loud screams.

Boom... the poor kid broke his ankle. We went down to the mat to see what was going on, and they had called an ambulance to take him to the hospital. What a bummer. We then all went to the ER at the hospital in Springfield, and what a sight... The ER, Jordan's ankle, the whole shebang.

I've been told the pics below are pretty graphic and not for the squemish. They don't really bother me, but if seeing bone potruding bothers you (there's no broken skin) I would stop here...

The good news for Jordan was at least once he got in the ambulance and to the hospital they managed to give him enough pain killers so he was comfortable, because as you can imagine, I don't think it's very pleasant to have one of your bones sticking out where it's not supposed to be...

All in all, things went as well as they could. Jordan ended up having surgery to repair his ankle, and was able to have the surgery and make it back to school without missing too many classes, right Jord? And luckily at the hospital we were all able to find a separate waiting area that we could all wait in and the kids could play without being in the middle of everything.

One thing I will say is Jordan sure knows how to make things interesting!

Long weekend...

Is there anything better than a three day weekend? Not much... Couple that with Valentine's Day and... well we don't really care too much about Valentine's Day. That's because I treat everyday with Karen as Valentine's Day. Vomit. Just kidding. Partially, I digress.

For Valentine's day we decided to go out to brunch, and after making some calls and finding out we were too late to get reservations where we really wanted to go, we ended up at the Seaport Hotel on the waterfront in South Boston. The brunch was actually pretty good, and getting there was very easy and there's plenty of parking and since it was a Sunday parking on the street was free, bonus! As you can see from the photos on top, Annie got a brand new red dress for the occasion, and was in pretty good spirits.

At the hotel, the brunch was pretty standard. Pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, eggs bene, etc. Annie was very well-behaved at the table, bonus. However, there was this woman who felt the need to crane her head around every few minutes to stare at Annie and not smile. Weird. Oh well. After brunch the hotel had a nice lobby so we figured we'd let Annie loose for a bit to stretch her legs. She had a great time running around the lobby... until it was time to go home. Cue to the pics below.

Trying to get Annie to get out from under the table so we could leave did not go very well. First she tried getting further under the table, then she went to full on meltdown. Luckily we were parked right out front so we ditched the coat and just strapped her right into her car seat. That also didn't go so well... But by the time we got home she had tired herself sufficiently to take a nap with minimal fuss. And yes, I'm that guy who will take pics of his daughter while she's screaming so that I can later post it on my blog. Sorry, it's a lot of pressure coming up with new material all the time!

The rest of the weekend was pretty boring -- errands, walks, grocery shopping, gym, tan, laundry -- and that's about it. And that was a Jersey Shore reference, Annie is too young to tan.

Annie Bananas & Marvin?

With the impending arrival of BBF (baby boy Ferguson), or Marvin (don't ask)... I've been thinking it might be time to change the name of the blog. I wouldn't want either child to get a complex or something because one has a blog named after her/him, etc. But the problem is it was hard enough to come up with a name for it in the first place, and updating one blog is enough work... so I'm taking suggestions.

I figure if all three of our readers suggest a new name, that's three more to choose from!

Food, Inc.

We interrupt this blog for a non-Annie post.

Has everyone seen this movie yet? If not, I really think you should. Basically this movie shows what goes on behind the scenes in the industrial food complex. I first heard about this movie during a class I was taking last fall about corporate citizenship, and a few weeks ago we watched it.

If you haven't seen it, or don't plan on seeing it, here are some summary points. Animals are treated extremely inhumane. Cows are raised in very large pens, crammed with other cows and spend all of their lives confined and covered in excrement. The farms they are brought up on are so big that they produce so much waste that the manure is toxic and put in huge pools, which then seep into the underground water tables, contaminating it. The slaughtering of cows is even more appalling. There is image after image of sick cows coated in feces being carted into the slaughter house, working their way into our food supply. Chickens. Chickens used to take about 3 mos to fully develop and now they are pumped so full of drugs that they reach adulthood in 30 days, developing so fast that they cannot even support their own weight. And the chickens on these huge factory farms are kept in dark, window-less structures for their entire lives. Pigs? You should watch the movie.

Basically the movie demonstrates how the government (lest you think it hasn't done anything for you) keeps the price of our food artificially low by subsidizing the production of corn, which is then fed to livestock. There are only a few extremely large multi-national corporations that control almost 90% of our food supply. These corporations in turn keep their farmers in a form of indentured servitude by constantly requiring new capital investments and involve the farmers continually taking out more and more debt to meet the corporations' needs. And since the farmers are in so much debt, they have no choice but to do everything the corporations tell them out of fear their contracts will be terminated and then they will be left without the means to pay their bills and provide for their family.

What can you do? A few things. The first thing is to eat less meat. If you're not swayed by the treatment of these animals, study after study has shown that diets based around plant-based food rather than animals are healthier. When you buy meat, buy organic. Organic meat is important for many reasons. Mainly, organic animals aren't pumped full of pharmaceuticals, the animals spend 2/3 of their lives out of confinement, and the animals are not fed genetically modified food.

That's all... we will return to our regularly scheduled programming momentarily...

New diapers

Here you can see Annie modelling her new G diapers. However, she doesn't fully understand how they work yet. You see, these diapers are 'hybrids' that have the qualities of reusable diapers, but the benefits of disposal diapers. How is that possible you ask? Well the short story is they have disposable inserts that can be flushed or thrown away because they are 100% biodegradable. They also have cloth reusable inserts, but we have neither the time nor the inclination for that option.

Last weekend was the first time that we tried these out, and so far so good. They've been through the full spectrum of 'uses' with minimal leaks. I'm trying not to be too descriptive because that kind of stuff does gross me out. Just like those annoyingly graphic but not Charmin commercials with the bears trying to get the pieces of toilet paper out of their bums. The website claims that if there's any leaks basically it's your fault and you haven't put the diaper on right, so we're still trying to get the ideal fit down, but there hasn't been anything traumatic that is keeping us from trying.

Annie has also been dealing with a raging case of diaper rash, so we thought the timing was pretty ideal to switch up her diapers and see if it would make a difference.

A visit to the Children's Museum

Last weekend we headed to the Children's Museum located on the waterfront downtown. It's been pretty cold here, so we've been trying to find places where Annie can go and burn off some steam that does not involve her running around and destroying our apartment. Seriously. And since our apartment is pretty compact, especially when you close off the bedrooms it takes Bananas all of about 30 seconds to trash the place. First, she starts in the living room, where she gets all of her toys out of the corner. Then she empties out all of the toys that are under the coffee and end table. After that, she picks up a few puzzle pieces and balls from the floor - places them in her Halloween pumpkin candy bag - puts that in her baby stroller... and the terror really begins. Heading out of the living room she stops in the dining room, checking to see if anything on the table is within arm's length - if so it's on the floor - then onto the kitchen.

Most of the cabinets in the kitchen we have secured, however there are two she has access to. The tupperware cabinet, natch. And a misc. baking supply cabinet you might remember from the "Over-under-inside-on top of' pic, because she likes to climb in. Once in the kitchen it takes her about 45 sec to have both cabinets completely emptied and strewn throughout the kitchen. And if we're really lucky, then she takes the empty Poland Springs 5 gallon bottles and rolls it like a steam roller operator over everything. And if this is a Saturday or Sunday - picture this happening over and over again for the next five hours. So you can imagine our dismay when it's cold out. Because Annie needs to burn off steam, and we need it not to be at our house!

The good news is that there are tons of places around Boston where we can let Annie run amok, and the best part is that we don't have to deal with the mess!

So, back to the Children's Museum. It's a great place, with tons of activities for children. One of the coolest activities Annie was still too small for. It's the giant vertical maze-like structure that's probably two stories high and encased in netting. A few years ago when our nephews Jackson and Sam came to visit we took them there and they loved climbing through it. Although watching it from the sidelines is a bit wrenching thinking that at any moment a kid is going to come tumbling down and down and down, etc. But it looks pretty safe actually and in the times we've been there we've yet to see any kids taken out on stretchers so, that's good. But there were plenty of other exhibits for her to enjoy, and in one of the play areas one of the employees was blowing massive amounts of bubbles that Annie went crazy for, she loves bubbles! All of us had a great time, and I'm sure we'll be back soon!