On the 4th try...

I finally remembered the password to my blog! Well, that's really not the reason I have been away so long, but it really did take 4 tries.

We have been busy getting the boys back to school, I have had a couple of really busy weeks at work, and projects around the house are keeping us busy in the evenings/weekends.

Both of the boys are adjusting well to their school schedule by now, can't say the same of the first three weeks. Even last week, we had a skinned knee on the way to the bus and then Matthew missed the bus on Thursday afternoon. Lucky for him, our neighbor is also the reading teacher and took Matthew to the office to call dad. We have had issues with not drinking enough liquid, drinking liquid and not alerting the teachers to impending accidents (Matthew has come home in different clothes on 3 different days now). I think I have this stopped by a rarely before seen "No Potty Accident" dance after school if he stays dry. For whatever reason, it's working, not pretty, but it's working.

The boys are eating lunch at school 2-3 days a week and taking their lunch on the other days, so here is the current schedule:
Monday: Chicken Nuggets
Tuesday: Take lunch
Wednesday: Take lunch
Thursday: Andrew gets grilled cheese at school, Matt takes lunch
Friday: Pizza
A side benefit from the boys taking their lunch is that Mark has decided it is just as easy to make three lunches as two. Boy do I feel like a heel, but it sure is nice to have a lunch ready and waiting when I walk out the door.

Mark was moping around the house last weekend and he finally admitted he was wanting a toy. I figure he has given up 6 years to stay home with the boys, ok, I can go for that, what is it? You want to play hockey on an XBox 360? Oh boy. So off to the store we go and now we have his hockey game as well as the Star Wars Lego game for the boys. After the first two hours, I was ready to take it back to the store or give it to the first neighbor who walked by our house. The boys loved it, but it was hard for them to play the game at first (aka sibling rivalry). After a week at it, they have figured out quite a few things on their own and it doesn't require constant supervision (so I guess it can stay). And no, this wasn't on my list of projects around the house that Mark promised he would do when the boys went back to school (but he is making progress on those too).

I have to share one funny from yesterday morning...I came down and fed and walked the dog. Of course, Andrew is already up and has been on the computer as well as playing XBox downstairs. I decided to check email before starting breakfast and about the time I sat down at the computer Mark came downstairs. I took a look at the screen and thought to myself "You know, if you are going to look at pictures like that, the least you could do is shut it down so the boys don't see it." Something of that sort came out of my mouth and Mark came over to take a look at the screen. "I didn't do that!" Riiiiggghhhttt. Although the unmistakeable "I'm Guilty" sheepish grin never came over his face, so it did occur to me that he was telling the truth. Let's just say there were three small pictures of a television sports anchor that were suggestive and somewhat revealing. I closed it down and moved on.

About 1/2 way through breakfast, Mark asked me if the anchor's name was Andrews and I said yes, I think it was. Mark queries Andrew to ask if he had been typing his name on the computer and he said "Yes Dad, I was in Computer Lab yesterday and they showed us how to use the Shift key to make letters in Uppercase, so I tried it on our computer." Andrew's login at school is AndrewS and if you type that into Yahoo search, the first line says ALSO TRY: erin andrews, blah, blah, blah. Andrew must have clicked on erin andrews and after that, the Rice Krispies must have been pretty boring! Go ahead, give it a try yourself! While you are doing that, I will work on the parental controls.

Despite a full court press on the allergy meds last week, I still came down with the "Every year just write off the last week of September allergies/head cold". It doesn't help that my department at work was without air conditioning for 4 1/2 days last week (they are installing a new air handler on the roof and suffice to say, it's not working). It was 90 degrees in Baltimore for at least two of those days, mid eighties on the other days. We got that fixed on Friday, but the allergies had taken over. Not feeling like doing much yesterday, we took two cars to the Fire Expo in case Andrew and I wanted to come home early. Looks like Blogger is not uploading photos correctly right now, so you will have to wait until tomorrow :-(