A Roofer

6:00 AM
Eli: Mom, I have to go to work
Me: You do - what kind of work are you doing today?
Eli: I am working on the roof
Me: Wow, that sounds like really hard work
Eli: Actually, it is.

You Win Some, You Lose Some....

The past two weeks have been a little nuts. Two months ago John joined the CNBC stock challenge. They give you a fake 1,000,000 to invest and then have great prizes for weekly winners and overall finishers. So at about week 3 John was bragging about being in 1200th place. Joe (my brother-in-law) and I got a great laugh out of his "bragging rights." Then in week 4-5 he was in ~400th place - I wish we had been more supportive, but we were still laughing at him. If you get 400th place in a 5K or marathon you probably walked most of the way - I guess we are hard to impress. At that point he declared that if he won anything (the top price was a cool $500,000) he wasn't giving us anything. When he got to 63rd place we thought we should probably stop making fun of him. Then came 18th place, 11th place, 10th place, 6th place. You see where this is going - the Wednesday before the end of the game - 1st freakin place. NBC contacts him and asks him to fill out a mound of paperwork - could it really be?!
The story unravels from here - John made a statistically great decision with the money - the market had other plans. The winner made 700 trades in the last four days of the game. He is a professional musician - which obviously translates into "time on your hands." So, no cash prizes for the Collins household - but John finished up in 13th place out of 750,000 - so that was pretty amazing. He made a crazy 163% on his money! Oh well - you win some, you lose some. We are proud none-the-less.

One signature away...

• 7 years
• 10 classes
• 2 kids
• $4 million+ in grants
• 2 journal articles
• 10 conference presentations
• 2 thesis proposals
• 500+ hours of research and writting
• 80 some odd pages later

I am finally going to finish my Master's degree!!

Are we there yet?

Parenting magazine says that you should take your kids through new situations so that they know what to expect and will adjust quicker. So today we were prepping our kids for our soon to come family vacation. Their response: "Great let's put our shoes on and get in the car." Gingerly, we tried to explain that we weren't leaving today - tears ensued.

The author of this article should have included an addendum:
"If your kids are easily excitable and experience strong emotional let downs you should keep them in the dark about all plans - they'll be fine."

In the meantime - this is going to be a very long week.

A Purse & Make-up??

On Tuesday we had three cute little girls over. That is a little more estrogen then we are used to in our home. So I am wondering if that is why Eli has been carrying a "purse" (A Fisher Price airplane) around the house and his "make-up" (6 match box cars). For now I am going to call it a "phase" if it continues on for more than a week we will add girls to the list of items banned from our house.

Nap Time

It is nap time - the house is quite. I just spent about 45 minutes picking up all of the toys in the living room. I put all of the blocks, animals, and cars in their little bins. I stacked up all of the books in their shelves. I lined up all of the big trucks. I repositioned the little people village consisting of a barn, an ark, and a dinosaur den. Everything looks great. In about thirty minutes Eli and Isaac will wake up, wonder what alternate universe they have stepped into and destroy the clean room in 2 minutes flat.

Aunt Mary

Today was the funeral for my great-aunt Mary's funeral. She was 96. I took the boys to the funeral, always a gamble. But I love the stories shared at the funerals of my older relatives - it turns out they were all quite a trip during their prime. The boys were excellent. Eli fell asleep about 20 minutes in. Isaac burped once (really loud), asked for "Pops" (my dad) 6 times in 40 seconds, said "Amen" 7 times (three time during the prayer, four after) and said "YEAH" after every organ song.
The "White" side of my family (last name, not race) are all characters, in fact I think their life stories would make an interesting book. My aunt Dorty used to say she would rather walk out of the house naked then without earings - those must have been some damn impressive earings. The story goes that Uncle Clyde (my grandmother's brother) bought a Valentine and hadn't decided who to give it to. My Aunt Dorty (Clyde and my grandmother's sister) said you should give it to Mary (Dorty's best friend). It turned out OK - they were married for 70 plus years.
It is nice going to the funeral of someone who lived a long excellent life and died in peace to go to heaven. Leaves a smile on your face. Here's to Aunt Mary.

Doo woop dee doo

In our next home the kids bedrooms will not face the east. Eli has become our resident rooster. Sunday morning began with a toddler arrangement of "Trashin the Camp" from Tarzan and "I wanna be like you" from Junglebook. He only knows about five words from each song, but at least he is happy in the morning. Well, to think of it Isaac is happy too he is just really quite. Somehow he has figured out how to suck on two paci's at one time - must be a genius...

Potty Training

From the beginning, potty training Eli has not gone well. In fact Isaac is more inclined to give you the two minute warning then Eli is. The first day we brought the “little” potty home Eli ran down the hallway squealing, with the squishy toilet seat on his head. I think he is a natural. This weekend Eli was standing in the kitchen, obviously pooping. So the conversation goes:
Mom: Are you pooping? (because two year olds are always honest)
Eli: No (quite agitated - I think he is starting to recognize how gross pooping in your pants really is)
John: Do you want to go use the big boy potty?
Eli: No, I don’t want to go to the potty, I want to stand here and look at you.
30 seconds later –
Eli: Ok dad, you can change my diaper now.

I think he is getting the hang of it.......

So, my shoulder still hurts

It happened Wednesday. It started by turning in what I hoped to be my last copy of my Master’s Thesis. I have been working on this degree for 6-7 years – so this was an accomplishment, a new day. So, I thought I would clean my office.

For about six years now my office (I have had three of them) has looked like Office Max, Bissell, and 3M have had a drunken three-way resulting in an explosion of paper, post-its and dust bunnies. This cleaning was long over-due. But I was thinking major over-haul, not just cleaning. I was on maternity leave when they relocated to the new office and I have never loved the arrangement. I wanted to move my office furniture around – moving some filing cabinets, make it homey.

So I started this excursion by picking up a two file filing cabinet – with the paper still in it (of course – you will find that nothing in this story is intelligent) and lifting it four feet over my desk – hence the bruises on my legs and arms. When I got it to its new space I was one inch too short. No big deal, I will move my massive wood, particle board desk with a tall wood shelving unit an inch or two by leveraging myself on the wall. The desk moved 2 inches, the shelving unit did not. Instead it crashed on the floor. I was trying to play it cool as my office mates came running saying “Its cool – I’m fine. I know it sounds like the building was being demolished – I am just moving things around.” It looked like my co-workers were looking at a Christmas tree full of presents. One said “Grab all her stuff and pull it out of her office, we will vacuum and dust.” It turns out, they were just dying to clean my office. So we moved everything out into 9-10 3-foot piles, I only wish that was an exaggeration.

It is so neat now my key-board echo’s when I type. I think my co-workers have a pool going as to how long it will last – I am thinking three weeks tops…..

The toy stick

We keep a long stick in the coat closet that we use to dig toys out from under the couch. It is a much desired toy of Eli’s, mainly because we are not stupid enough to let a two year old have a stick. It is the mystery that keeps it interesting. It had been in a temporary home above the refrigerator and I was moving it back to the closet. Unfortunately Eli saw me do it – and so drama ensued. After five minutes of camping in front of the door so Eli couldn't open the door, and Eli screaming and crying, the phone rang. So is the dilemma – do I go get the phone, thus abandoning the door and leaving Eli free to get the stick? Or do I let the machine pick up and continue the lesson. Eli perked right up knowing my decision – “Mom, mom the phone is ringing you have to get it, answer the phone, go get it” By the time I answered the phone he was happily in the floor with his stick, Eli - 1; Mom - 0

The Beginning

So when you have two boys life is always an adventure. ALWAYS! I think if I had five boys (God bless the Coopers) I would be in a crazy house. Eli & Isaac are doing to many funny things for us to keep to ourselves - so our blog is born. Hope you enjoy!