THE MARINI FAMILY

WELCOME TO THE CRAZINESS OF OUR LIFE WITH TWO BOYS!

Friday, August 27, 2010

Fridays

Remember when Fridays used to be the best day of the week?  From the beginning of the day it's like TGIF mania.  Nothing can get you down.  You have basically started your weekend that morning and are really just killing time until work is over.  They don't call it Casual Fridays for nothing.  Casual is the word and mood of the day. 
I miss those Fridays.

My new Fridays are not casual, nor are they enjoyable.  I don't love them anymore.  Because Fridays are now a gathering of my week.  A gathering of papers and correcting for the week.  I took this picture after school today of my desk.  I started laughing when I came back in from yard duty after school and looked down at the mess.  At this point...I laugh, so I don't cry.  This is my new Fridays.  Thirty-six kids times six different subjects times two different grade levels.  Exactly what time does Happy Hour start and why am I not there more often?


Someone asked me the other day how I am doing.  I said I am doing fine.  I drink more now, but I am fine.  If I am successful this year...and by successful I mean I do not enter a twelve step program by the end of the year...I will look back and remember what a fantastic class I had this year.  I have twenty-five fantastic fifth graders and eleven fantastic sixth graders.   I'm a lucky girl.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Are you ready for some football?

Soak it up!  Take a look and get it out of your system!  Enjoy it while you can!  Because this will be the only football my boys play...the flag kind.  There will be no shoulder pads, helmets or rib protectors.  The only tackles that will be happening are the ones that occur on my living room floor.  I am not a fan of putting my son in a game where the only job of the opponent is to level my son so another kid can carry a ball for a few yards.  Not going to happen.  So enjoy...this will be the extent of their football career.

Our first game was this morning.  And after having two practices a week for the last month we thought we were prepared for our first game.  We were way wrong!  We were so wrong that practices next week will probably be WAY different than the last month.  When it was clear that the other team had a defensive coach and an offensive coach...and we had one guy, the game turned ugly fast.  The up side to this situation is that we will only get better.  And we can gage how well we are doing each week because we play the same team....each Saturday...for nine more weeks.  That's right...the same team for ten weeks straight.  So our goal is to show up with game between now and the last match.

The highlight of the game for us was that Matthew did score the only touchdown his team had.  He was playing quarterback and successfully took the ball the length of the field in a very "Vince Young--I'll Do It Myself Move." 
The touchdown run sequence.


Thursday, August 19, 2010

Sleeping Boy=Easy Target

Before you call CPS on me...Yes he was in a time out and yes he fell asleep.  I promise, I SWEAR, he was only there a few minutes.  It's Thursday and so that means preschool, followed by a fun afternoon at daycare with favorite friends and that equals sleepy, cranky boy.  Hence the time out.  Anywho...Teddy (who has been in his room all day waiting for playmates) was not happy about this boy falling asleep.  So he decided to take care of things himself.

The approach.  He was just thinking about digging in but heard me come up.  I gave him the green light.


Teddy's thinking....Finally, some movement!!!
What??  Wait!!  Where are going????
Excellent!  I love ears.
I'm done!  I give up!  This kid won't wake up for nothin'!!!

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Seriously...this is our new life.

Our old life...BT...Before Teddy, went something like this.  Wake up, get ready, leave just enough time to grab a bite to eat before we rushed out the door to work/school.  We'd come home in the afternoon, have a snack, do homework, play for a little while or watch some tv, take showers and off to bed.  Bam! That was our day.  Those no longer exist.

Our day now consists of waking a little earlier because if we don't we won't have time to play with you know who before work.  We rush home in the afternoon because the thought that we left him yelping and crying for us breaks our hearts.  There are no afternoon snacks.  We go straight to the floor and play until dinner.  After dinner we play more and try to get him exhausted for the night.  We love it.  He is addictive. 

Some of the things he loves....
1.  Being carried.  Which is easy to do because he is lovable and weighed in at a hefty 2.9 pounds the other day.
2.  Following everyone.  And if he loses sight of you, you'll know it immediately because a panic bark comes out.
3.  Rich.  Like crazy loves him.  I am not going to call Rich out again on the blog he "never" reads...but if you spent as much time with Teddy as Rich has....on purpose at certain times of the day/night because the thought of Teddy being upset kills you...Teddy would worship you too.
4.  His bed.  His pillow.  His blanket. 
5.  His toys.  Especially the one Shelly (aka Mrs. Schatz) brought him the other night.  He loves his rope.
6.  Standing outside the shower when the boys are in it.  He barks like crazy because he can't get to them.
7.  The other doggy in the dishwasher reflection.  He's there, I promise.
8.  Running like crazy through the house....bonking his head on things when he can't control stopping himself.
9.  Cuddling on anyone.  Likes to be in laps instead of by them.
10.  And finally....he likes to pee and poop wherever he pleases.  People keep telling me he is just a baby, and that is the only reason we let him get away with it.  Well, that and his cute face.








Monday, August 9, 2010

Day Two---Teddy 1, Family 0

See this face?  This face has gotten him out of the following:

Wake up call at 4:30am this morning for Mommy and Daddy.
Peeing and pooping on everything OTHER than his pee pad....he is regressing.
Using my hands, feet, clothes as chew toys.

And finally...that look has gotten him out of his room to sit in my lap more than a dozen times today.  I'm a sucker!

And pssssst....I'm not the only one.  When "someone" got home tonight from work, he got on the ground so that Teddy wouldn't kill himself trying to get to his face for kisses galore.  And that "someone" was enjoying every minute of it.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

What did we just do???

I had heard it too many times. A boy needs a dog! A boy deserves a dog! And we have two boys…so it was pretty much a given that this should automatically happen. Right? Nope! These two boys have some pretty stubborn parents who don’t want dog hair or dog poop or potty training problems to deal with. I had just gotten to the point where I could control the amount of toys being brought into the living room! Why? WHY on earth would we even think about a dog??!!! Well simple…we thought it was time they got their dog.


So it began. The search for a dog. The parents who weren’t doing the dog thing…turned into the parents searching the internet day and night to find a dog. This was not a quick process. Those of you who know my husband know that he doesn’t do anything on a spur of the moment. And truth be told…he got cold feet at times and so did I. This started in June. Yes June. We were patient and careful. We had a couple potential leads that never went anywhere positive. I was beginning to get frustrated and I knew that no matter what….we would not settle. Was I desperate at times??? Yes. But then I realized that there were no real time constraints and that we would find a dog to love.

And so it happened. Last Saturday night I was searching all of my fourteen websites that I would check daily for new listings, and I found the add. We called up the people, went to see the dogs. We picked out the one that when I held him, he just cuddled up and rested. We asked the couple if we could come back the following weekend and pick him up and they really couldn’t have been nicer and said of course. So, we had our puppy.


WHAT DID WE JUST DO? That exact sentence was going through my mind a hundred times on our way home from picking out the dog. I had an upset stomach the whole way home. I just kept thinking…THIS IS GOING TO CHANGE EVERYTHING. We’re not ready. We don’t have anything. We don’t know the first thing about potty training a puppy. What are we going to tell the boys??? Then I would go through a calm period and remind myself that I am in charge of 36 ten and eleven year olds for six hours on a daily basis…I can handle a puppy for crying out loud. And then, without fail, panic ensued again.

We told the boys that afternoon. They were beyond excited. Their reaction was everything we expected it to be and more. Matthew must have asked us a thousand questions. Ryan reacted like a typical three year old…he was excited for 29 seconds and then asked us who we were rooting for in his hockey game…The Sharks or The Red Wings.??

Later on in the week I had asked Matthew if he would have preferred that we waited longer to tell him because then he wouldn’t have had to wait so long. He was honest and said yes. He said the week seemed to go by so slow and he was just so excited. I know this for several reasons. The first, his teacher Mrs. Hennecke, was now counting down the days until the dog came. Every time I saw her, she too, like Matthew, told me how many days until D-Day. Second, I would have to sit and listen to a series of scenarios that Matthew would throw at me as “what-ifs”. My favorite was this one: Mom, what would happen if my backpack was on the floor and it was unzipped and the dog crawled inside and I didn’t know it was in there and I zipped up my backpack and took the dog to school not knowing he was in there? What would happen, Mom? Would I get in trouble? After I assured him that it would NEVER happen, he still gave me more “what-if” scenarios of the dog “accidentally” ending up at school. I told him I will be checking his backpack daily.

That night as went to dinner we were playing the name game. I will spare you all of the funny, unfortunate, ridiculous names that were brought to the table. Rich and I decided that we would have veto power toward any name that we thought other people would immediately say “So you let the kids pick the name?” About half way to the restaurant Matthew says, “How about Teddy? His first name can be Teddy…because he looks like a teddy bear. His middle name can be Bear because that is the second part of teddy bear. And his last name will be Marini. So his name would be Teddy Bear Marini.” I looked at Rich and said out of the corner of my mouth…"That’s actually not that bad." And so it was decided, we would name him Teddy Bear Marini. Aka…Teddy.

Meet the newest Marini!









Tuesday, August 3, 2010

First Day of Preschool!!!

Today was Ry-guy's first day of preschool.  He was SO excited and such a cool cat all morning about it!  He did so well....and his parents did too!  I took the morning off so I could go and see everything.  Rich always gets to do the drop-offs and pick-ups, so I miss out on a lot of stuff and by the time they get home, all they say is "It was good."  BOYS!!!!


Yep...there's that arm again. 

Alright Space Rangers....Let's do this!!!!

He never slowed down or ever got scared.  He ran to class!

Already checking out the facilities.  We had been in the classroom approximately 4 minutes before he had to check out the bathroom.

A train table is a happy place for a three year old.

"Mom, look at all the stuff here!!!"

I've got this!  You two can go now.  Go on...go.  Goodbye.  Mom and Dad...GOODBYE!!!!

From the looking glass outside the room....we couldn't help ourselves.