Last year it was the basketball hoop in the driveway which took 400 pounds of sand to fill the base. Yes, 400 lbs that I had to cart back from Home Depot in 50 lb bags. Then there was this debacle a couple years ago. And with the kids getting older the problem only seems to be growing.

This year I thought it would be good to get them a Foosball Table for Hanukah. But not just any table. I wanted to get one that would last many years, providing enjoyment all the way through high school. Did I mention I was a bit of a foosball aficionado back in the day?

I found a table on Amazon. It looked great in the picture and had good reviews. What I didn’t realize, until the guy delivered it on a packing crate, was that it weighed over 200lbs. And there was assembly required.

This is what it looks like on Amazon.

This is what it actually looks like after you manage to get the 200lb box down the basement stairs.

Four hours, 3 finger blisters, and a sore back later, we’re ready to unveil it tonight. Blisters are what happens when you don’t have the electric drill charged and you need to fasten dozens of wood screws by hand. I’m looking forward to the cute deluxe play kitchen I will be assembling on Christmas Eve. This time I will charge the drill ahead of time.

He was already anxious, I knew he needed to go potty even though he refused, and coupled with the extra long wait we had in the waiting room, it was getting to be too much for Thing 3 so he decided he would leave.  He left the dentist’s office and slammed the door.  Then opened it.  Then slammed it.  Then opened it.  The office staff thought it was entertaining.  I was not amused.

In the examining room, he refused to get into the chair.  The kid who loves to watch movies didn’t want to pick a movie that he could watch on the ceiling while lying back in the chair.   He wouldn’t let her floss or brush his teeth.  He finally agreed to sit in my lap while the dentist “counted” his teeth, which is his effective ploy to get a look in his mouth.  All along Thing 3 was saying how “horrible” everything was, and that he wanted to “punch everyone in the face” and “put them in the toilet”.  Luckily those last two were for my ears only before we got there.

Even with little he was able to see of his teeth, the dentist spotted some decay on his front tooth.  Maybe that’s because he is such a willing participant every night when it’s time to brush his teeth.  The dentist wanted him to take an x-ray.  You can imagine how well that went over.  A new room he didn’t want to go into.  A new chair he wouldn’t sit in.

Twenty minutes and a lot of coercing later we had the x-ray results.  There was a spot that would need to be filled either now or as a cavity later.  Considering he never was able to have the cleaning, we may as well do the filling and the cleaning all at once in a future visit where he will need to be sedated for about an hour while they work on him.

Sedation ought to be fun, especially considering his addiction to milk and the fact that he can’t have anything to eat or drink for 6 hours prior.  We’ll likely need to use sedation for all his dentist visits in the future.  And do you know what’s really fun about that?  The not covered by insurance $650 it costs each time.

This weekend I was not able to help Thing 3 when he needed it, wanted it, and kept asking for my help. It pains me to relive it just by writing about it.

He was playing Super Mario Galaxy on Wii. He was at a new level that he couldn’t figure out how to get past. His usual sources of help in this area, Thing 1 and Thing 2, were not home. So it fell to me.

“Daddy, help me! Show me how to do this”

I tried, but couldn’t figure it out. He got upset. A four year old’s image of a father who knows and can fix everything, shattered, never to return.

But we realized we’ll have to do it sooner or later so yesterday we had a brand new, Carrier Infinity installed.  It’s the mac daddy of air conditioners home comfort technology.  It’s got a lot of whiz bang features like showing you the outside temperature on the thermostat and speaking of thermostat, it looks like an iPad hanging on the wall.

All that is nice, but last night I found out the feature that makes the hefty price tag worth it.  Apparently it does such a good job with its “home comfort technology”, that everyone in the house slept in until 6:30am!  At the same time.  You have to realize how amazing this is for us.  In the last 8 years, I don’t think we’ve ever slept that late.  We’ll see tomorrow if it was a fluke or the Carrier Infinity.

Who could have done it? There were only three prime suspects. Thing 4 was off the hook because it was higher than she can reach. And at 16 months she doesn’t know how to write letters. For that reason, we ruled out Thing 3 because the letters were too nicely written for a four year old.

That left Thing 1 and Thing 2. Luckily, there was one really strong clue that made it pretty obvious. There were only two letters, written twice each, as the start of the same word. Not a lot to go on, except they happened to be the first two letters of Thing 2’s name. When confronted, he wisely confessed rather than try to deny it, because, fortunately for us, he is one of the world’s worst liars. He will not have a bright future as either a poker player or a criminal mastermind.

SuburbanMommy has been waiting seven years to shop for frilly dresses and hair bows. But no matter how girly she is dressed, Thing 4 just wants to follow her brothers. I see a lot of very pretty dresses getting very dirty in her future.

Here is Thing 4 as the best dressed basketballer ever.

To his credit, I have never seen Thing 3 so genuinely apologetic for damage that he caused.

R.I.P. Mr Duck

So I guess this was expected. Thing 4 likes to play with cars. And bang on drums. And climb.

She does NOT like to play with dolls. She doesn’t just prefer other toys. No, she is actually *afraid* of dolls. Especially the ones that look like real babies. She cries until you take it away. We need to change this. So SuburbanMommy has already bought some to give for her upcoming birthday. We’ll see what happens.